Wonka movie review

By Julia Bevilacqua, 2024

Published 3/10/24

Timothee Chalamet stars in the new all-ages movie “Wonka” directed by Paul King with music by Joey Talbot and Neil Hannon. This whimsical prequel to the infamous “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, tells the origin story of Willy Wonka himself. Willy is a poor boy with big dreams of selling chocolate all over the world. This movie pays homage to the original including one Oompa Loompa, played by Hugh Grant, who is on a mission to steal Wonka’s Chocolate but becomes an unlikely friend. 

Overall this movie was really fun to watch, with many different elements of song, dance, fun costumes, and easter eggs from the original movie. Compared to the other movies Willy Wonka movies I thought this one was great. Wonka seems very mysterious in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, so it was fun to find out where someone with endless amounts of chocolate and little orange helpers comes from. But, what surprised me most about this movie is that it is a musical. Unlike the other Willy Wonka movies this movie included its original soundtrack, with a few popular songs including “Pure Imagination”, “You’ve Never Had Chocolate Like This”, and “Scrub Scrub” just to name a few. All of the songs were whimsical, catchy, and tied in perfectly with the action in the movie. Each of the characters added something special to the movie, and it was very easy to see where Wonka's generous and kind spirit comes from. This is a feel-good movie that I think anyone who has seen the original movies, has to see.   

Wonka first hit theaters on December 15, 2023, and has taken the world by storm with 82 percent rotten tomatoes and 4.1 stars on Google. The movie made about 39 million dollars on opening weekend in the U.S. alone and has now made over 151 million dollars globally.