Everyone from Hannibal Lecter and Darth Vader to The Ghostbusters and the Godfather have been given the origin story treatment, so why not Wille Wonka, the mysterious and mischievous chocolatier created by Roald Dahl? That’s the premise of “Wonka,” a new musical now playing in theatres.
Timothée Chalamet plays the title character, the young version of the Wonka seen in 1971s “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” and 2005s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” but his sartorial style is already in place. Decked out in a top hat, purple waistcoat and flamboyant scarves, Wonka arrives in town with the dream of opening the greatest chocolate shop the world has ever seen.
“I’ve spent the past seven years travelling the world,” the magician, inventor and chocolate maker announces, “perfecting my craft. You see I’m something of a magician, inventor, and chocolate maker. So quiet up, and listen down. Nope. Scratch that, reverse it.”
His original idea was to make chocolates his mother (Sally Hawkins) would love, and after years of study he learned to concoct delicious, unusual candies. His caramels are salted with the tears of a Russian clown. His cherries come from the Imperial Gardens in Japan and his marshmallows are harvested from the mallow marshes of Peru, and some of them, like the Hoverchoc, have magical, gravity defying side effects.
Trouble is, the city is under the thumb of the Chocolate Cartel, sweet treat tycoons Mr. Prodnose (Matt Lucas), Mr. Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton) and Mr. Slugworth (Paterson Joseph). They don’t like Wonka or the threats his chocolates pose to their businesses. “He’s good,” snarls Fickelgruber. “Too good.” But they really hate his idea of making affordable chocolate for the working class.
“Send Wonka a message,” says the sinister Slugworth.
Nothing is going Wonka’s way. The local Chief-of-Police (Keegan-Michael Key) threatens to bonk him on the head, the Cartel is out to ruin him, he’s indebted to work house owners Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) and Bleacher (Tom Davis) and a small orange Oompa-Loompa (Hugh Grant) accuses him of stealing cocoa beans.
Despite the odds, with the help of an orphan named Noodle (Calah Lane), the optimistic Wonka is certain he can make his dreams come true and make his mother proud.
Directed by “Paddington’s” Paul King, “Wonka” replaces the weirdness of past film adaptations with whimsey. From the fanciful set and costume design to the heightened performances and relentlessly upbeat tone, it is as sweet as any of Wonka’s magical confections. A celebration of the power of dreams, it’s satisfying and delicious, and tonally feels like a companion piece to the others rather than a revisit or a nostalgic look back.
Chalamet’s Wonka has little to do with the reclusive, narcissistic, judgmental character as played by Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp. He is still an eccentric outsider, but in this version he’s also the emotional core. King and co-writer Simon Farnaby flesh out his story, adding in a backstory that includes a strong connection to his mother and huge dollops of earnestness. That light and airy feel is balanced, somewhat, by the addition of nasty capitalists who want to crush Wonka’s dreams for their own benefit. But make no mistake, this is all chocolate and charm.
Chalamet plays Wonka as a charismatic oddball but without the cynicism that colors other portrayals of the character. The “Dune” star replaces cynicism with a delightfully clever naiveté, anchoring the film’s light and breezy tone. His Wonka pays tribute to, but isn’t an impression of Wilder or Depp. It fresh and fun work, with credible singing and dancing, even if the songs aren’t exactly earworms.
In their handful of scenes, Chalamet cedes the screen to Grant. In what is easily his silliest role ever, Grant finds the fun, playing a testy Oompa Loompa on a mission.
“Wonka” is a scrumdiddlyumptious family film for the holidays. A lavish movie, powered by pure imagination, it is life affirming, with a sense of wonder. It doesn’t enthrall in the same, off-the-charts measure that King’s “Paddington” movies do, but really, what other film does?
Fury, the new Second World War film starring Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf, is being called the most realistic war film of all time. The story of a U.S. 2nd Armored division tank rolling through Germany in the final days of the war is as authentic as director David Ayers could make it.
Actors were put through their paces at a week-long boot camp, living and sleeping inside tanks. Then there were the tanks themselves. Borrowed from collectors all over the world, Fury is the very first time a genuine Tiger 1 tank has been used in a Second World War film.
Onscreen authenticity has been the goal of many directors. As Michael Cimino once said, “If you don’t get it right, what’s the point?”
Cimino, director of Heaven’s Gate and The Deer Hunter, is a stickler for detail. For a scene in a Chinese eatery in Year of the Dragon, the director hired the Shanghai Palace Restaurant to supply the meals that dotted the tables. Cimino not only wanted to create the look but also the vibrant atmosphere (complete with food smells) of a bona fide restaurant. To that end chefs worked round the clock, whipping up 100 plates at a time, using 500 eggs rolls and hundreds of pounds of chicken, beef, shrimp and vegetables. “If the food got cold we had to throw it away,” said chef Charlie Wu. “The food doesn’t look good when it is cold.”
Any other director would have done the Nut Room scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with computer-generated imagery, but Tim Burton decided he wanted a more lifelike approach. To make sure the scene looked as real as possible, animal trainer Steve Vedmore spent 10 months training 40 real squirrels to crack and sort nuts on a conveyor belt.
Eric Schwab, the second unit director on Bonfire of the Vanities, was asked to grab a shot of the Concorde landing in New York against the backdrop of the setting sun. Schwab spent months studying the rotation of the Earth and the flight path of the plane to capture the perfect, pure moment when the sun framed the landing aircraft.
Finally, it’s not just live-action movies that go to extreme lengths for authenticity. The creators of Monsters Inc. individually animated each of giant fuzzball Sully’s 2,320,413 hairs to make them look as lifelike as possible. Every frame featuring the character took 11 hours to render.
Remember the Fractured Fairy Tales on the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show? They were updated riffs on old fables and following their candy-coated summer hit, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp now present a film in that same spirit. Corpse Bride is a stop-motion animated film that brings life to a century old Russian folk tale.
Far less dark than the name would imply, Corpse Bride is a grim fairy tale about an awkward young man (voiced by Depp) whose nouveau riche family has arranged for him to marry a titled but penniless young girl (voice of Emily Watson). After a disastrous wedding rehearsal the nervous groom is sent away to learn his vows. While rehearsing in the woods, he playfully slips the ring on a tree branch and utters the wedding words. In the film’s scariest sequence the hapless man discovers the branch is actually a bony hand attached to an arm—an arm belonging to The Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter). In life the deceased girl with the Michael Jackson nose was jilted at the alter and now thinks she has a second chance at martial bliss in the Land of the Dead.
The tale of the reluctant groom and his new ghoul-friend is a simple story that really comes to life in the telling. The beautifully hand-rendered animation—each movement of the puppets was done by hand, frame by frame—is a gift for the eyes. The colorful Land of the Dead is a wild underworld that resembles the heyday of the Cotton Club in a parallel universe, complete with a chorus line of skeletons; while the Land of the Living is a gorgeously somber place that reflects the mood of the story.
Far more, however, than simply a triumph of art direction or stop-motion, Corpse Bride is one of the best movies of the year featuring good performances, a story with real emotional depth and fun faux baroque music from Danny Elfman.
