Wonka review: Grumpy old Roald Dahl would have hated this wonky film, writes BRIAN VINER
Roald Dahl hated the 1971 film Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. But the notoriously dyspeptic author hated a lot of things.
It doesn't take much imagination to conclude that if Dahl were alive today, one of them would be Wonka, the freshly minted “origin story” of one of his most extraordinary characters.
Paul King's musical fantasy stars Timothee Chalamet as the eccentric chocolatier, created for Dahl's 1964 book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and memorably first played on the big screen by Gene Wilder (much to the author's horror , which Spike Milligan wanted), and then in a 2005 remake by Johnny Depp.
Chalamet was an understandable choice as the youthful Wonka, not least because there are multitudes of young people who almost swoon at the mention of his name.
This phenomenon is known as Chalamania and I've seen it firsthand, most recently before the world premiere of Wonka at London's Royal Festival Hall last week.
The Chalamaniacs were there in great numbers, shouting his name. So they may not forgive me for suggesting he is miscast.
Chalamet was an understandable choice as the youthful Wonka, not least because there are crowds of young people who almost swoon at the mention of his name.
But here's the thing anyway: Chalamet is too wholesome for this role, and never quite finds the charisma he needs to fully engage us as a song-and-dance man, in a film that also feels too derivative by half.
Poor but cheerfully ambitious, Willy wants to make his fortune in a city that is a kind of hybrid of Dickensian London and Belle Epoque Paris.
Unfortunately, his plans to set up a fantastic chocolate shop using skills learned from his late beloved mother (Sally Hawkins, seen in the flashback) soon go awry as he is trapped in a workhouse run by the annoying Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Colman). channeling Catherine Tate's bad-tempered 'nan').
Another inmate in the workhouse laundry is Abacus Crunch (Jim Carter), the genius former accountant for the city's unscrupulous chocolate cartel, Slugworth (Patterson Joseph), Fickelgruber (Matthew Baynton) and Prodnose (Matt Lucas).
This dastardly trio has the chocolate-addicted police chief (Keegan-Michael Key) on their payroll, not to mention a conniving cleric (Rowan Atkinson). So even when Willy escapes the wash with the help of his feisty young accomplice Noodle (newcomer Calah Lane), the odds are stacked against him.
The cartel, grudgingly recognizing his genius, must do everything they can to stop him. And he has another apparent enemy: a villainous Oompa Loompa (Hugh Grant, bizarrely shrunken by CGI).
And he has another apparent enemy: a villainous Oompa Loompa (Hugh Grant, bizarrely shrunk by CGI)
Paul King's musical fantasy stars Timothee Chalamet as the eccentric chocolatier created for Dahl's 1964 book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
There are some fun moments as this all unfolds, and some good jokes – and a few others that are straight up jokes. When Willy has to milk a giraffe (to make his giraffe milk macaroons, of course), it turns out that he has milked one before, in Africa.
“Was she wild?” he is asked. You can see the joke coming even if you're not old enough to remember none other than Atkinson, as Gerald the gorilla, in the television sketch show Not The Nine o'Clock News, 43 years ago. “She was absolutely furious,” he replies.
King and his co-writer Simon Farnaby collaborated to much greater and more original effect on the wonderful Paddington 2. Here, too often, the whimsy feels forced.
For example, some of Willy's chocolates make people fly, which tests credibility even in a fantasy (at least in the 1971 film it was carbonated drinks that made Charlie and his grandfather float through the air).
The relationship between Willy and Noodle, the boy, also feels difficult. It's meant to be the heartbeat of the story, but as the heartbeat progresses it fades in and out uselessly.
Notable echoes of other, better films don't help either. A song in the workhouse reminds us that the score doesn't hold a Victorian candle to Lionel Bart's in the 1968 classic Oliver! Food Glorious Food was an anthem for the ages; there is no such thing here.
And even the mighty Colman isn't nearly as terrifying as Emma Thompson's Miss Trunchbull in last year's fantastic Matilda, a cinematic tribute to a Dahl book that might have pleased the old grouch.
Although one of the producers is Luke Kelly, Dahl's grandson, I don't think this crazy Wonka would please him at all.
Wonka opens in cinemas across Britain next Friday