Rent Wonka (2023)

Cheerful Musical Origin Story - Wonka review by GI

This is a charming family fantasy musical with a hugely talented lead actor and I've no doubt children everywhere will be in raptures watching it. But it is all a little lacklustre and the dark edge of Roald Dahl's famous character is nowhere to be seen here. Timothée Chalet portrays him as a thoroughly likeable and naïve young adventurer who arrives in 19th century Paris with the ambition to open a chocolate shop using his late mother's recipes. The Willy Wonka from the book and even the Gene Wilder film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) has that scary side of the character that children are meant to fear. This film has the stereotypical cartoonish baddies (Olivia Colman and Tom Davis) who trap the young Willy in their sweatshop laundry at the behest of the nasty chocolate kings who dominate the market and don't want any cocky new competition. So Willy has to escape and expose all these baddies so he can finally realise his dreams. There's an orphan story running alongside the main plot and Chalet handles the average songs with aplomb. But it's Hugh Grant as the original Oompah Loompah who steals the show. There's a host of British talent here and Sally Hawkins cameos as Wonka's mother in a high production and pleasant enough film that is ok. Director Paul King hasn't really captured that magic he managed to bottle in Paddington (2014) and it's sequel.

Tooth-rottingly Sickly-sweet Backstory stuffed with Backstories & new mediocre music/silly songs - Wonka review by PV

OK so, this is really a kids' film, I suppose BUT will they be transfixed by it? I doubt it, even though it tries EVER SO HARD to please them, and I mean very VERY VERRYYYY hard - ticks all the boxes and has funny accents and costumes and animals and all, and more. All done by the book, with goodies, baddies, set pieces, lush scenery in a fantasy town (based on Oxford with the Bridge of Sighs of Hertford College and Radcliffe Camera/Bodleian library, and the Old Town Tower in Prague for the church), and the usual three-act structure of a QUEST with a big setback before the final triumph. But it just has no ZING to it, no SPARKLE, despite the great cast and immense cost. Chemistry, I suppose.

It even adds 2 top songs from the early 1970s US film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The 2 best ones - Imagination and the Oompa Loompa song, each cowritten by David Bowie's great hero. Anthony Newley with Leslie Bricusse who died aged 90 in 2021 - they also wrote the song FEELING GOOD for another musical of theirs, recorded later by Nina Simone. I have always liked the Divine Comedy and Neil Hannon BUT the new songs here are just mediocre and unmemorable - just like the stage musical of Charlie I saw in 2013, which also lifted the memorable early 1970s Imagination song for the finale. The final theme song A Hatful of Dreams just about cuts the mustard BUT it is no match for the song IMAGINATION.

But it all somehow falls as flat as the mediocre unmemorable melodies. Not sure why. The acting is fine, and the casting too (though the usual diverse casting of now is yawnfully evident). I especially liked Tom David as Mr Bleacher, he was great in superb Channel 4 sitcom THE CURSE, and also Simon Farnaby as Basil the Zoo Keeper, he is great in DETECTORISTS and many other TV comedy shows).

Best of all I liked Hugh Grant as an Oompa-Loompa (who gave me my only laugh during the whole movie) BUT kids should know that orange-faced green-haired people were ONLY invented for the early 1970s US film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the book there is NO description at all in the version we all read. In the original Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, only published in the USA where Roald Dahl lived in 1964, the Oompa-Loompas are described as little black African pygmies. It was changed in later editions after criticism by a journalist/reviewer at the time of civil rights. of course if one REA:LLY wants to be right-on woke and pc, one can cite this whole film and story as cultural appropriation as chocolate was taken from South America by invaders from Spain/Portugal. That is how to get yourself tied in the multiple tangled knots of wokery. Plenty of fatshaming in this film too, and mocking the poor, and casual violence - as befitting the cartoon characters here.

So 2 stars from me. I doubt children would give it more. They'll probably demand to watch the US film WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971), apparently a Christmas Day traditional film on TV in the USA. In the UK, my generation did not see it until we were adults BUT we had the book, which is better.

Great fun - Wonka review by MW

My wife and I thought Wonka was brilliant fun and we found it very funny. Watch out for all the UK comedians who make appearances.