Wonka

Chocolate, as a general rule, is a delight in almost any form. Nevertheless, not every candy in the aisle is equally tasty. Case in point, this movie. Certainly, there are some good pieces in this package, even a few morsels that are downright scrumptious. But then again, as in the proverbial box of chocolates ... there are a few sour quince logs. As the title character, Timothée Chalamet is perfectly fine, particularly when he is being his most Wonka-ish. Even his song and dance numbers are generally clever and entertaining; not quite so when the rest of the rather uneven cast is called upon to make with the musical. (One wise choice by the filmmakers: many of the original songs call back to the themes in the tunes of the first, classic flick.) The strength among the other characters is Noodle, portrayed with charm, wit and wisdom by young Calah Lane. Visually, the film is very well done, both in its overall design and in some clever but not overly obtrusive special effects. Those are the positives. On the other side of the ledger, the supporting cast is an uneven bunch—Willy's fellow inmates range from tolerable to bland to almost nonexistent, the evil chocolatiers are overly  outlandish, to the point of unbelievablility, and Keegan-Michael Key basically embarrasses himself—plus the story runs a bit too long (even at its relatively modest run time) and comes across as mildly misdirected. The original provides its villains with comeuppance along the way; this movie builds towards a big, blowout dispensation of justice that ultimately comes across as flat and anticlimactic. So, overall, watching this work is an up-and-down experience. There’s enough entertainment in these scenes to eek out a loud MEOW, or maybe something a bit higher if you are somewhat indulgent—as the chocolate lovers among us tend to be.

Dune: Part Two

So there’s fanatical space Arabs out there. Well, that’s just great. Hopefully any excesses will be confined to moviedom. It is the overriding impression one gets watching this movie, just how much the tale is filled with Middle Eastern vibes. That’s not something you usually get in your sci-fi epics, but it does lead one to contemplate how tableaux about empires and power and war are really about death, destruction and misery. And in this outing, you don’t even get to the end of the conflict—all this is just a prelude to the third entry, which presumably will present us with one hell of a climax. As it is, there’s plenty of action and intrigue to go around in this installment, more than enough dazzle to keep you entertained—visually, at least, if not in terms of the story—throughout the movie’s rather long (two and a half hour) running time. Oh, and don’t worry so much about how long it’s been since you saw the first one; even if you never laid eyes on the first flick, you can follow along with what’s going on easily enough. In sum, it’s great to look at, tells a good story—at least the middle part of it—and features a slew of familiar faces doing good work all around. Not much more you can ask from a better than average space opera.

The French Dispatch

One of the worst half-movies I’ve ever seen. How bad is it? I watched, stopped watching about a third of the way through, later went back and tried to finish watching it, and had to stop watching it all over again, getting no further than halfway through. Hence, worst half-movie. The second half could rival Casablanca for all I will ever know, but I saw more than enough to make this call. The performances are dreadful all around, the script is an unfunny pastiche of unrelated and uninteresting vignettes, director Wes Anderson’s penchant for meticulous framing and visual design goes far overboard (he can’t even settle on an aspect ratio), and his usual wit—always in danger of falling too far into preciousness—is either well past the limits of tolerable or just outright absent. And all of the above comes from a viewer who typically counts himself as a fan. The over self-indulgence here is just too much, so much so that this can’t even count as a noble failure—it’s simply a disaster, and a waste of everyone’s time. It had better be back to simplicity and honest effort for this auteur, or else this misstep could signal a career that has reached its lovingly crafted denouement.