there’s certainly something to a franchise that has made Pure Imagination the touchstone of all the thematic elements. From the completely out there elements of the chocolate factory, various candy creations, to the cartoonish world these characters inhabit, imagination may be prominent, but never really pure. Starting as a novel by Roald Dahl, the story of a young boy with a golden ticket and his chocolatier hero has leapt from book to film, to film, to stage, and back to film again as a prequel. Wonka shows us the wacky candyman before he got super famous. And for reasons, this is also a musical.

If you’ve lost faith, you do not understand the directorial abilities of Paul King, who turned Paddington 2 into a massive critical success. While the first one is adored, somehow he actually made a sequel that surpasses the original. Doing characters that leap from the page in fanciful ways is his gig, and whether this film is dealing with a chocolate mafia, an orphan named noodle, or an Oompa Loompa played by Hugh grant, this is a magical experience.

Timothee Chalamet is Wonka, and he carves out a performance that feels like none before. he doesn’t seem like the early version of Gene Wilder, johnny Depp, or even Christian Borle (who played Wonka in the stage musical). He is his own younger version.

The movie centers around needing to break into selling candies, but he comes to a town that finds it easy to lock him away and keep him from bringing chocolate to the people. There’s a mafia that has power by controlling the chocolate, and they use the local law enforcement to do their bidding. So, Wonka is a little screwed, until he meets a room full of endentured servants who didn’t read the fine print by their landlord (Played whimsically by Olivia Coleman), and now find themselves doing laundry all day long. One of those is a young girl named Noodle.

Packed with delightful songs that are fun to listen to in the moment, even if there isn’t an immediate ear worm, I didn’t really have a problem with Wonka on a broad level. Just little things. I think Hugh Grant was the wrong choice for an Oompa Loompa (and apparently he hated shooting this), but it is just one actor in one role. Overall, I was thinking this would be fine, and it surprised me like Paddington 2.

Darren Rivets and the team at Deluxe have a lot to cover here. This world is clearly a force of fancy, and I’m shocked it wasn’t nominated for Production Design at least at the Oscars. Even from the audio description I can pick up all of King’s choices that make this clearly a visually striking film. It is one of those films that feels set in a world adjacent to real life, and not entrenched in it, so the audio description works overtime to describe all these whimsical choices that are made to make it feel like a true off the page adaptation, even if Wonka isn’t written by Dahl.

This comes to MAX next week, so check it out. i was really truly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It felt totally unnecessary when it was announced, but I’m learning never to count out Paul King.

Final Grade: A-