The flaws in director and co-writer Paul King’s prequel are obvious, starting with the fact that he’s taken the anarchic and unsettling confectionary overlord given to us by author Roald Dahl (and famously embodied onscreen by Gene Wilder) and turned him into a human version of his previous star, the wonderfully polite and sweet young bear named Paddington. (The human in question is Timothée Chalamet, who at least manages to convey some of the character’s uncommon character.) You remember Paddington: the sort of fellow who genuinely believes he can win through pure decency. When an orphaned waif tells young Wonka that the greedy beat the needy and that’s just the way of the world, he responds with unutterable sincerity that they’ll simply have to change the world. Of course, it helps that despite his utter destitution — a plot point that puts him in his primary predicament here — he still carries a portable version of his chocolate factory, one capable of conjuring vast quantities of enchanted edibles from something very close to thin air. He sings that all he’s got are a hatful of dreams, but his sales sheet says otherwise. Oh yes, there are songs. The good news is that they mostly fit seamlessly and harmlessly into the narrative, and when they don’t, as in the big production seduction number “Have You Got a Sweet Tooth,” the show-stopping makes sense. The less good news is that Chalamet sounds weirdly tamped down when he sings, almost as if they did something to his voice in post. The virtues are obvious as well: King’s love for his characters and their world is palpable, his story mechanics tick away as precisely as Wonka’s marvelous candy contraption, and his trademark whimsy is in plentiful supply. Hm, well — perhaps too plentiful, sort of like an action director who finally gets the budget to do a 20-minute car chase. Oh drat, I seem to be back to flaws. But here’s the truth of it: for the most part, they didn’t come to me until after I’d left the theater. Because the great virtue here is charm — which has a way of covering a multitude of sins in the magic of the moment — followed by, yes, sweetness. (2023) — Matthew Lickona
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