[Review] Wonka (4/10)

 

Title - Wonka
Production - Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, The Roald Dahl Story Company
Starring - Timothee Chalamet, Calah Lane, Hugh Grant, Paterson Joseph, Olivia Colman, Tom Davis, Mathew Baynton, Matt Lucas, Freya Parker, Keegan-Michael Key, Jim Carter, Rakhee Thakrar, Nathasha Rothwell, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson
Writer - Simon Farnaby, Paul King
Director - Paul King
Release - 14 December 2023

Timothee Chalamet - the most talented actor of his generation, can do no wrong because he can do it all. Except musicals, unfortunately.

Not a single number in this musical was catchy or memorable, except the Oompa-Loompa song which Chalamet did not perform on. Here's my theory.

Chalamet's musical range is very limited to one octave. Therefore, the composers had to write songs that Chalamet was able to perform. And so, either because of that the songs were very dull; or the songs were just badly written.

Chalamet did his best to carry this movie, you could see he really was giving it his all. But then Paul King's direction were a bit wonky (pardon the pun). And that is surprising because King directed both the Paddington movies and they were a joy. 

But here, the tone had its weird moments, like when Chalamet had any sort of outbursts; they just didn't fit with the rest of his character.

Young Calah Lane was a disappointment as well. She had no spark nor screen presence, either that or Chalamet drowned her out.

Only Olivia Colman was really enjoying herself with the accent and the dentures. And Hugh Grant's character was both cute and disturbing at the same time, and he was great (a much better character than his turn in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves earlier this year).

But most disappointingly, the whole storytelling felt very juvenile like it was written for kids instead of everyone. The plots were so basic; and in fantasy movies like this, those plot points needed to be more grounded to have some verisimilitude. But we jumped from one thing to the next without much believability and it was very boring to watch.