WONKA

[phantom_power]

Weren't they prequels to the shit-awful Mark Wahlberg PotA?

[Beloved of Jo]

Godfather 2
Temple of Doom
Muppet Babies

Wait, Temple of Doom was set before Raiders? Huh.


Anyway, no Great Glass Elevator film because Dahl forbade it in his will or something. The Witches film was good but the happy ending ruined it. Child mice should die with their grandmothers of old age. Danny the Champion of the World was okay as a child compared to the book I think, in a made-for-TV kind of way. Matilda was okay but came out too long after I'd read the book.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Weren't they prequels to the shit-awful Mark Wahlberg PotA?

That ended up being a standalone thing since it wasn't very well received. So I guess they rebooted the series twice.

[The Bumlord]

Weren't they prequels to the shit-awful Mark Wahlberg PotA?

Saw that in the cinema and still have nightmares about Ape Bonham-Carter.

[Blumf]

Saw that in the cinema and still have nightmares about Ape Bonham-Carter.

Wet nightmares

[The Bumlord]

Oh god no

*wanks*

[Mister Six]

Also, that trilogy of Planet of the Apes from about 10 years ago was pretty good?

The first one with James Franco is middling, but the following two are excellent. I say this as someone who has no interest in monke film, but was prodded into watching them by a housemate.

[jamiefairlie]

Were some of the original PotA films prequels? I remember them being surprisingly decent when I watched them years ago

By "original" do you mean the 70s ones? None were prequels although they did time travel to the past in one.

[kalowski]

The first one with James Franco is middling, but the following two are excellent. I say this as someone who has no interest in monke film, but was prodded into watching them by a housemate.

Watched the first one again recently and thought it was really good. Well plotted.

[phantom_power]

By "original" do you mean the 70s ones? None were prequels although they did time travel to the past in one.

I think that is where I was mistaken. Don't they travel to the past and end up creating the planet of the apeths in the first place? SPOILERSS"!!Z

[Mister Six]

Watched the first one again recently and thought it was really good. Well plotted.

Might just be my mild disinterest in Franco - don't hate him, just never find him terribly engaging - and also not really giving a toss about Planet of the Apes, origin stories or apes in general (except orangutans and gorillas, they're cool).

But I was really engaged with both sequels.

[sevendaughters]

Saw this today. It is pretty tedious to be honest.

[sevendaughters]

Anyway, I have time to write more. I'll put it in spoiler tags just in case.

Spoiler alert

As expected, Wonka is this year's Paddington - a star-heavy cosy British take on the material that plays up the liberalising/humanising aspects of the character, plays down the dodgy ones, and invents some extra positive ones in case you didn't quite get the message the first, tenth, or hundredth time.

Chalamet will never be a favourite of mine as he oozes Performing Arts student and a slightly mechanical approach to emotionality that belies his coldness and makes him feel like the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter of acting. However, he really isn't helped by how flat Wonka is written. There is a backstory (bonus spoiler tags) coming up

Spoiler alert

Sally Hawkins beatific deadmum

[close]

but it is very one-dimensional - occasionally he will look at an old chocolate bar and sigh. Some will say the story is for kids and therefore it is being kept simple; to those people I blow a raspberry.

There are musical numbers - two are borrowed from the Wilder version - but the others are identifiable in that mode of Neil Hannon-esque slightly detached pop fantasia. Like a wry McCartney, but not earnest enough to make emotions feel real where they're needed. My friend said she was surprised by Chalamet's voice, but I thought he warbled a bit weakly on the central number in the shop.

Most of the supporting cast are Brits you'll recognise playing a 1-d version of what they do. Some of the little asides are amusing, but none of it is funny or particularly interesting in service of something. Just luvvies having a good old time.

Wonka ends up assembling a posse that includes Jim Carter and Rich Fulcher (whose every line dies on arrival, even as a man playing a bad comedian, it doesn't work). At least two of these characters are basically transparent - we're supposed to think that they have a transformative effect on Wonka by the end, but two of them are just observer-facilitators.

The Charlie character here is called Noodle and there's some promise around her that relates to the main bad guys. My cynicism detector was quite low whenever she was on screen and though the resolution of her character

Spoiler alert

finding her birth mum in the Radcliffe Camera at Oxford, shot in a less stylised way

[close]

made groan a bit, I was pleased.

This sort of cemented my problem with this and the last one: the film has to be perspectivised through the child. That allows Wonka to be an enigma, a psycho, a slaver, a joy, a clown, a genius, a liar, a charlatan, a Barnum - because the desires of the child creates a screen to the worst of him. When he's just a goody-two-shoes quirky babyface played by a dweeb, he's uninteresting and surrounded by shallow caricatures.

[close]

[Catalogue Trousers]

Is there a film in The Great Glass Elevator? All I remember from the book is them going to space, and there being gigantic worms... would need padding out.

Yes, Dahl seems to have realised that himself...once the Vermicious Knids are beaten, he still has half a book to fill, so he segues awkwardly into a plot about an amazing rejuvenation medicine called Wonka-Vite which de-ages you, but does so to before you were even born, if you're not careful with the dosage, leading to a lot of weird metaphysical Limbo-esque stuff before the happy ending. Very odd.

[gilbertharding]

Yes, Dahl seems to have realised that himself...once the Vermicious Knids are beaten, he still has half a book to fill, so he segues awkwardly into a plot about an amazing rejuvenation medicine called Wonka-Vite which de-ages you, but does so to before you were even born, if you're not careful with the dosage, leading to a lot of weird metaphysical Limbo-esque stuff before the happy ending. Very odd.

Oh yes - that rings a bell... I really oughtn't to comment though, because I'm fairly sure the last time I read it, James Callaghan was Prime Minister.

[touchingcloth]

I saw this in the cinema with English audio and Portuguese subtitles. I'm not saying it was boring, but the subtitles were the best bits. When the policeman put on 150lb and Johnson threatened to drown them in 80,000gallons of chocolate, those were faithfully translated into metric as 68kg and 364,000l.

[Schnapple]

Oompa loompa doopity dee
Excellent performances from the spectrum of TV
Oompa loompa can't help but see
Your miscast lead actor is charisma-free

[touchingcloth]

There was a glaring omission of Katy Wix.

Apparently Big Suze was in it, but I didn't see her.

[Johnny Textface]

I went to the cinema with the fam to watch this as the "Family Christmas Movie tm". My son, who is 5, loved it - so that's something.
I don't think it was advertised as a

Spoiler alert

full blown musical.

[close]

Nothing particularly memorable in that department - although I did like "World of Your Own" which was well performed by Timothee and pretty catchy in a divine comedy way.
The film itself is pretty atmospheric with lovely cinematography, but generally pretty empty (and tedious I'm afraid).
3 out of 5 choccy bars mainly for effort.

Matt Lucas was wasted and didn't get anything to get his teeth into.

[bobloblaw]

There was a glaring omission of Katy Wix.

Apparently Big Suze was in it, but I didn't see her.

posh (naturally) lady with her daughter in the 'grand opening of the shop' scene

[Mr_Simnock]

watched this earlier in the week, amazing how much the butler character from dowton abbey seemed to fit in so naturally

[Head Gardener]

The songs in WW1 were lovely but it's hard to image Neil Hannon's songs being quite as creepy, it's also a hard album to find on vinyl.

[sevendaughters]

love Roy Kinnear as honking Wigan dad in the middle of a kid's film

[touchingcloth]

The BBC review describes it as "Relentlessly wacky and over the top"

U wot. It was about as wacky as the little Colin Hunt one who lived in the laundry.

[famethrowa]

love Roy Kinnear as honking Wigan dad in the middle of a kid's film

Oi! What choo playing at, Wonka?

[dissolute ocelot]

Bad prequels would include most of the Star Wars (except Rogue One), Peter Jackson's Hobbitses, The King's Man, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Alien vs. Predator, the Fantastic Beastses. Cruella is mediocre, and apparently there are lots of other Disney straight-to-video ones like Little Mermaid: The Roe Years and Scar: Not Quite A Psycho Yet. I know some people liked the Alien prequels but I wasn't keen on Prometheus and haven't seen Covenant.

Good prequels would be Rogue One, Monsters University, The Wolverine (2013), Powerpuff Girls Movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (although the last 2 are not prequels to a film). Maleficent isn't exactly a prequel, more a retelling-from-the-other-side, but is quite good (see also the forthcoming Wicked). The McAvoy/Fassbinder X-Men films and Bumblebee were mostly OK too but they're more "earlier films within the same universe" than prequels.

Also all World War One movies are prequels to World War Two  movies.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Scar: Not Quite A Psycho Yet.

AKA Scab.

[cromby]

Yes, Dahl seems to have realised that himself...once the Vermicious Knids are beaten, he still has half a book to fill, so he segues awkwardly into a plot about an amazing rejuvenation medicine called Wonka-Vite which de-ages you, but does so to before you were even born, if you're not careful with the dosage, leading to a lot of weird metaphysical Limbo-esque stuff before the happy ending. Very odd.

I remember how frustrated I was with myself for taking Great Glass Elevator on holiday as my only poolside book as a kid once I realised how shit it was. Just rambling, meandering rubbish.

[sevendaughters]

I remember how frustrated I was with myself for taking Great Glass Elevator on holiday as my only poolside book as a kid once I realised how shit it was. Just rambling, meandering rubbish.

there's a funny bit early on where the President thinks the Glass Elevator in space full of Charlie, Wonka, and his family are terrorists trying to blow up SPACE HOTEL USA is funny, but even writing that down I can see it is an essential betrayal of what the thing is meant to be.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

It turns out that I have no memory whatsoever of anything that happens in Great Glass Elevator