Willy Wonker, excentric owner of a chocolate and candy empire, invites five children to visit his highly secretive production facilities. At the end of the day, he will pick one of the five to be given the great and secret prize.
Funny how some stories are kind of complicated to summarise in two sentences, others aren’t. This one is dead simple, and the reason may be that apart from the framework setting, nothing much happens. The production design is a splendid mix of sickeningly bright colours and psychedelic plants. The factory workers are a weird dwarfish version of a Maori tribe, including a version of their dance rituals that you would not have expected to begin with. But apart from that: the 5 kids are being decimated one by one. One is left over, he gets the prize, and the film is over. It looked nice while it lasted, but – as most Tim Burton films, sorry to say that – form strangles substance, and it is just terribly boring.
thomas4cinema 