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Much like the Mary Poppins follow-up, this prequel to the much loved Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory falls flat at worst and mediocre at best. While it's not a horrible film, it falls well short of the bar set by the original staring Gene Wilder. Walking in the footsteps of a legendary, beloved classic is a near-impossible task as it is, but this film barely seems to try.

The Music/Songs:

The problem with modern day musicals, this one included, is that they're not songs - they're conversations set to a tune. While they sometimes meet the technical requirements of rhyme, getting there is quite ponderous as they fail badly in terms of meter. By the time a character has finished singing one sentence, I could've listened to three songs from the original. This, I think, is why the songs are largely unmemorable because each one requires us to essentially learn "Modern Major General."

Compared to the original, these songs also seem largely lacking in point. Whether, as many others point out, they're far too frequent or some other reason, they just don't inspire a person to sing along. The original songs either gave us insight in to the character's state of mind, they're foibles, or their comeuppance. Here, its more like "Ow, I stubbed my toe! It really hurt! I'll be walking funny all day!"

The Characters:

Grandpa Joe, Charlie, Veruca, and Willy are all timeless, well-known and had time to be explored/fleshed out. Heck, even the one-shot people like the scientist with the machine telling him it couldn't cheat and the psychiatrist demanding his patient tell him where a dream told him a ticket was had more personality and are more memorable than most folks we see here. The villains are cartoonish caricatures lifted right out of a Neil Breen film - Twirling their mustaches, talking openly about how evil they are, and doing incomprehensibly stupid things like keeping records of their misdeeds.

Though Timothée Chalamet seems a capable actor, the writing for Willy Wonka doesn't give him much to work with. Here, Willy is presented as an ever-jolly fellow, constantly smiling and looking on the bright side of life. Does that seem even remotely like the enigmatic, wise-cracking, flippant, wise, distant, playful, fun-loving, often enraged and borderline psychotic Willy portrayed by Gene? The fun of the original Willy was that he could be all those things because from the time he 'fell' off his cane and did a roll you learned you could never know what to expect out of him from one moment to the next. This incarnation just doesn't seem the same man who would show such unbridled rage as during his "You stole fizzy lifting drink," speech. Yes, people can change, but we should have gotten at least a hint of one of these other moods/behaviors during the movie, just to show him as being capable of capricious behavior.

Final Thoughts:

I agree with those that have already said it, it's a nice looking movie. The visuals and effects are excellent, but is that enough to carry a film? The original didn't have things like CGI and even adjusting for inflation, the budget for the original is a penny in the cup compared to this one, yet I can watch the original again and again and again...this movie just isn't going to get the same kind of love and devotion. While the actors do what they can, the movie winds up being too "sweet" for it's own good. The original was accessible to both adults and children alike, this one seems to lean heavily towards favoring children. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but if you want your film to be timeless, you have to make it so adults aren't going to want to pull their hair out or to suddenly remember they need to cook a 2 and a half hour dinner.

It's a shark movie. Really, beyond that, what do you need to say? Like so many others before it, this one follows the same basic cookie cutter format, and it doesn't even do a particularly good job of it. Whether its Open Water, The Shallows, or The Reef, if you've seen one you've seen them all. There is only one slight difference here, and if you're old enough to spot it, its actually quite hilarious.

A married couple go on vacation and their hut/cabin gets swept out to sea.

For those of you to young to remember...with the exception of the sharks...that's the opening plot of Rescue from Gilligan's Island! Yes, folks, this movie lifts a premise from Gilligan's Island! Need I say more beyond that this had me laughing up a storm rather than feeling any sense of terror?