150 Word Review: 'Wonka' (2023)
The candyman can (and he does)
I didn't want to see Wonka, but a pair of nine-year-olds insisted. So I did. And unfortunately, I enjoyed the unnecessary prequel.
Wonka is Hollywood strip mining another beloved intellectual property, but the colorful mess works due to Paul King, who directed Paddington & Paddington 2. Those movies are droll fables about a polite British gentlebear, warm and fuzzy but not overly sentimental. Wonka is similar, although King does honor creator Roald Dahl: the evil adults (like Olivia Colman's Mrs. Scrubbit), are revolting.
Timothée Chalamet is effortlessly charismatic as the whimsical chocolatier. Is he as good as Gene Wilder, cinema's original Wonka? No. But that was also Wilder at his best, mischievous and sinister. Speaking of 1971's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, the song “Pure Imagination” is resurrected twice, and each time, it upstages all of Wonka, a musical with a few snappy tunes, none of them a timeless classic.
No matter how many times this movie is remade, everyone will probably want to watch it.
Can’t comment on this latest version yet, but I eventually will.
I still love saying, “Burp, Charlie, burp!”