Tom Salinsky

Paul King is a superbly accomplished filmmaker. As if it needed demonstrating, Paddington 2 proved that Paddington was no fluke. He has wonderful visual flair, a warm sense of humour, an enviable address book of British comedy and acting talent, and a keen eye for storytelling. But Willy Wonka is not Paddington Bear and the approach which worked so well in his two smash hit ursine masterworks doesn’t suit this character nearly so well.

This is something of a disappointment. Wonka The Early Years was always a terrible pitch, but not everyone had faith that resurrecting beloved children’s character Paddington Bear would prove successful in the era of TikTok, iPhones and Brexit, and that worked great in the right hands. However, the problems inherent in the very idea of returning to Wonka’s origins turn out to be insurmountable and they gang up to tear in half this slender and not-nearly-funny-enough movie, which is too silly for adults and quite likely too boring for many kids.

In Roald Dahl’s story (and the 1971 film adaptation starring Gene Wilder, to which this film is almost more indebted) the central character is an ordinary child, and the mysterious, reclusive, magical, dangerous, unpredictable and mercurial Wonka is kept carefully at arm’s length. Having him as the protagonist means making him prosaic, outgoing, amiable, understandable and knowable, all of which are terrible ideas. This conflict between the needs of the character and the requirements of the plot drives a series of fatal contradictions through every beat of this film.

So, Wonka, who is utterly impoverished, is capable of magically producing endless supplies of chocolate from thin air – with a single trip to procure giraffe milk being the only time that any thought is given to the need for ingredients, which he never seems to need to pay for. No, I don’t want my beguiling fantasy wizard to be sending invoices to suppliers, but then I don’t want an entire movie built around his financial fortunes either, so it’s definitely the movie’s fault and not mine that I’m asking these questions. When absolutely at his lowest economic ebb, he is able to whisk up an ingenious Oompa-Loompa trap, despite the fact that he has been plagued by this antagonist for literal years, and has never thought to do this at any previous point, when it would no doubt have been far easier.

Wonka is both given an inability to read, and is required to solve a subplot by identifying the letters on a signet ring and working out what they stand for. His imprisoning by Oliva Colman’s Mrs Scrubbit does far more to solve his problem of not having anywhere to sleep, and also furnishes him with a ready-made gang of acolytes than it does to inconvenience him in any way. His endless chocolate-making is fuelled by  cocoa beans which he stole from Loompa-land where they are in very short supply (why not visit somewhere where they grow in abundance then?). He is able to transform a derelict shop into a chocolate palace overnight and seemingly without effort, but is unable to repeat the trick when it catches on fire. Customers desert him in droves when his chocolate causes bizarre transformations, but this is completely forgotten about in the climax when everybody accepts free candy from the man who wrecked their appearance. And so on, and so on, and so on… What’s weirdest of all is that in the Dahl/Wilder version of the story, chocolates were for kids, as you might expect. Here they’re almost exclusively for adults who are nostalgic for their childhood. And desire for chocolate is horrible and leads to vile obesity if you’re a bad adult, but is a magical and delightful experience if you’re nice.

Of course, this is still a Paul King film, so things aren’t all bad. There’s the usual roster of familiar telly faces, with such luminous talents as Sally Hawkins, Sophie Winkleman, Charlotte Ritchie and Isy Suttie all in micro-roles, and meatier parts for the likes of Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Grant, Keegan-Michael Key, Jim Carter, Rakhee Thakrar and Matt Lucas. The songs by Neil Hannon are perfectly serviceable, although shown up by the reprised Leslie Bricusse/Anthony Newley classics. But, even though the Paddington films took place in an artificial world, the basic strategy of an innocent bear in a familiar environment worked, and grounded the stories, so that when King wanted us to feel something, we did. Here, everything is a candy-coloured cartoon, nothing feels real, and when I’m supposed to feel something for moppety Noodle, it’s impossible because she’s made of sugar and pixels, and when I’m supposed to feel something for Wonka, I fundamentally don’t want to. All of Hugh Grant’s best gags are in the trailer, too. Bugger.