Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Director: Philip Kaufman
Screenwriter: W. D. Richter
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy

This film is about aliens. Technically. But also, it isn’t.

This is the second adaptation of “The Body Snatchers” by Jack Finney (following the 1956 Don Siegel adaptation, also titled Invasion of the Body Snatchers). It follows roughly the same plot, where strange, plant-based life forms come to Earth after travelling across the stars, where they grow replicas of human beings in huge pods, each identical save for the removing of emotion (and so no war, no pain, no love). Their infiltration of the community they find themselves in is the scene of paranoia, of the discovery of a conspiracy, of the terror of realising that your family members may look and sound the same, but that they aren’t actually them. A small band of survivors must battle the odds when the system has been infiltrated and turned against them. The novel and original film, taking place in the midst of 1950s Red Scare McCartheyism, is as thinly veiled an allegory for America’s fear of communism as you can get, though Finney denied this throughout his life (movies such as The Thing From Another World and It Came From Outer Space also follow the trend). Both of those texts are also seminal sci-fi horror reading/viewing. The question, therefore, is how does this version stack up?

Part of the genius of this interpretation is the decision to move the action from the small town of Santa Mira (in the film)/Mill County (in the book) to downtown San Francisco. The added chaos of urban life gives a sense of menace to the spreading contamination. The allegory here is of corporations turning people into shells of their former selves, and of the destruction of the natural world – a kind of capitalist updating of the red weed from H. G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds”. Roger Ebert commented that it might also be influenced by the Watergate scandal, with tapped phones and wires. Whilst this is a possibility, those features were always elements in the novel and the first film. What is certain, is that by putting this viral personality takeover in the middle of a city, the danger is far more immediate. With the first film, if it gets out of the small town, there’s still a chance. There’s a larger civilisation out there to help. Here, if you’re dead in the city, with all that manpower and all those connections, with all that modernity, there’s not much chance that anywhere else is going to last. Along with this updating, the pod-people in their growing stage are much more organic, more tissue-like, adding to the ecological themes. It isn’t as strong a body-horror shift, but perhaps comparable to the way in which the 1958 version of The Fly (starring Vincent Price) was updated for modern audiences: a reimagining rather than a remake, as directed by David Cronenberg in 1986 (ironically, also starring Jeff Goldblum).

The air of being hemmed in is all around. The buildings impose, the close proximity that everyone is to each other (and in some sequences having several of the characters together in every shot one after the other), makes the idea that the people next to you aren’t who they say they are even worse. The main cast is terrific, bringing sufficient weight and drama to a terror slowly building up as the horrific realisation of what is going on dawns on them. The little things occurring in the background add to that paranoia, and is something Edgar Wright specifically mentions as an influence on the background details for Shaun of the Dead in his DVD commentary (ironically, Wright’s body-snatching film The World’s End actually has the ending of the original novel, in which the invading force realises humanity will never be converted, which is something no actual novel adaptation has kept). The occasional shots of the garbage compactors crushing the husks of used pods comes back time and time again unmentioned but always there, and when you realise what they are, by then it’s all too late. Everything’s already over.

Speaking of endings, Kevin McCarthy (who played Dr Miles in the first film) has a cameo in this one, playing very much a similar character (but not the same), slamming on Donald Sutherland’s car and screaming ‘You’re next!’, much like his famous ending to the first film. Even if it’s not Dr Miles, it gives the impression that Miles has been wandering for years warning us of the oncoming apocalypse. It’s so iconic an original ending that one wonders how this film could possibly one-up it. And yet it does, in an ending reveal burned into the public consciousness with just sound. Sound that has drained from the world as the film runs on, with characters fleeing through the streets, their feet slamming against the road. Somehow that’s the most disturbing thing of all. The takeover of the pod people, with their uniformity, has reduced the need for talk, for going anywhere unplanned, for noise. Despite their horrifying screech, the emptiness of the sound of the world is what truly scares. The naturalness of the world has faded. Now it is simply a factory of the pods, a greenhouse for empty husks.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has everything you could want. A great cast, direction that mostly stands up (there are unfortunately some parts when Kaufman decides to go for some egregious camera movements which betray the camp B-movie roots and lodge in the cinematic throat), an all-consuming tone, and some of the most iconic scenes of all science-fiction and horror. It has to be seen to be believed, and, even with the odd misstep, remains an all-time classic.

Score: 20/24

The Ten Commandments (1923)
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Screenwriter: Jeanie Macpherson
Starring: Theodore Roberts, Leatrice Joy, Richard Dix, Rod LaRocque, Nita Naldi

It is impossible to watch the first 45 minutes of Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 silent epic The Ten Commandments without your mouth hanging open in awe. The sheer artistry on display is astounding, from the art direction, to the cinematography, to the technical effects. Helmed by one of cinema’s most successful and influential pioneer directors, The Ten Commandments offers the very best of what movies can be, and 100 years later stands as a testament to the innovation and technical achievement of the early days of moving pictures, a reminder of the shoulders that artists today stand upon. According to The Film Foundation, it was Paramount’s highest-grossing film for 25 years. While DeMille’s 1956 remake of the film starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner is probably the version best remembered by audiences, thanks in part to ABC’s yearly tradition of airing the film the week before Easter, the original 1923 version is just as spectacular and worthy of praise and appreciation. At times bewildering and heavy-handed, The Ten Commandments is a sprawling morality tale that often loses the plot, but nevertheless offers us a fascinating glimpse into the primitive days of filmmaking, as well as the ideals and expectations of post-war America.

The Ten Commandments begins with a title card that explains how the modern world considered the laws of God to be “old fashioned,” but following the bloodshed of the first world war, that same world, now bitter and broken by death and destruction, “cries for a way out.” What follows is a 45 minute prologue retelling the Exodus from the first testament of the Bible, in which Moses (Theodore Roberts) leads thousands of enslaved Israelis from Egypt. But when the Pharaoh’s son cannot be revived by his Gods, Ramses (Charles De Roche) chases after them. Moses parts the Red Sea, goes to the Mount to receive the ten commandments and inflicts the wrath of God upon the Israelis when he returns, because they have forsaken God while Moses was away and are now worshipping a golden ram. The sinners pay for their disobedience; they are struck down by lightening.

Fans of the 1956 version might be a little bit confused about what happens next.

As the frame fades to black, the film jumps ahead to modern day, where the devoutly religious Martha McTavish (Edythe Chapman) is telling the story of “The Ten Commandments” to her two sons, John (Richard Dix) and Dan (Rod La Rocque). While John is a lowly carpenter and content to remain so, Dan has big plans for his future; plans that do not include respecting the teachings of God, much to the horror of his mother. Dan and John soon fall in love with the same girl, Mary (Leatrice Joy), which sparks a chain of events that lead to a deadly conclusion.

This last half of the film is a morality play about the dangers of falling from God’s grace, which the film never lets you forget. The dialog is so over the top it borders on self-parody. It’s way too on the nose and beats you over the head with its message. It’s hard not to laugh when Martha, horrified that Mary and Dan are listening to music and dancing on Sunday, dramatically smashes the record against her giant bible. As Shawn Hall pointed out in The Everyday Cinephile, “The choices of the characters are dictated by the morals the filmmakers are trying to teach the audience, not their inner motivations and desires.” Modern audiences, who are overwhelming less religiously minded than they were 100 years ago, might have a difficult time swallowing the film’s black and white morality, but this part of the film didn’t fare very well with audiences at the time of its release either, who saw it as a downgrade from the breadth and scope of the prologue. According the The Film Foundation, Variety at the time called it simply “ordinary.”

There’s a reason why, in DeMille’s 1956 remake, the Exodus and parting of the red sea serves as the climax of the story. It’s the most exciting part. Starting the 1923 version with this sequence, DeMille set his audience up for disappointment. There’s just no matching its insane spectacle and technical prowess. According to The Film Foundation, the sets for the prologue were built by 500 carpenters and 600 painters and decorators. The sets, including a 120 feet tall temple, were massive. This was a hugely expensive production, and it still looks expensive after all these years. It’s also worth noting that several scenes in the prologue were in color, including the parting of the red sea and the fire used to hold back the Egyptian chariot riders. According to The Musuem of Modern Art, DeMille used several techniques for adding color during the silent era including tinting, spot-coloring and techicolor. If anything, The Ten Commandments dispels one of the pervasive myths about older films: that they were all in black and white, and that color did not happen until decades later. These scenes thankfully remain in tact, thanks to restoration done by the George Eastman Museum, which used DeMille’s personal 35mm copy as one of the sources.

It would be unfair to say that the second half of the film, which overstays its welcome, isn’t entertaining and engaging, despite how seemingly mundane it is. There are several sequences of note, worthy of the same praise given to those within the prologue. The destruction of the church near the end of the film is stunning, as is the scene in which Mary takes the elevator up to top of the Church’s roof. This part of The Ten Commandments is also elevated by its lead performances, especially Dix’s. He is so deeply charming and handsome as John; his unbuttoned vest and buttoned up shirt, sleeves rolled up to the forearms, could probably make anyone see the light and convert. Several actors in The Ten Commandments eventually made the leap to talkies, and Dix notably became a big-box office draw for RKO in the 1930s and was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in 1931’s Cimarron. The performances are nuanced and natural, which might come as a shock to modern audiences who might still hold false beliefs about how acting in silent films was generally over the top and goofy. While it’s true that screen acting was still in its infancy in 1923, and some of it was over the top, a lot changed between when the first pictures were released and the filming of The Ten Commandments. In the early 1900s, the craft of screen acting evolved at lightning speed, becoming more naturalistic, and it’s wonderful to see a glimpse of that evolution in The Ten Commandments.

Will Hays was officially named head of the newly formed Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1922, and his primary job was to quell dissent among Hollywood’s critics when it came to censorship and the increasing moral ambiguity of its stars. In the early days of filmmaking, various censorship boards in the United States would cut anything and everything that did not meet societal standards of decency and propriety from films, so it is worth noting that the Paramount did not cut a single second of The Ten Commandments (per The House of Fradkin-stein). This is astonishing considering there is a frame in which Miram, Moses’ sister, gets her breast fondled in full view of the camera. It’s interesting that, while on the surface, The Ten Commandments is preoccupied with telling us a moral tale in showing the downfall of Dan McTavish, the film also shows a lot of decidedly ungodly things including murder, adultery, and greed in great detail. As author and professor William D. Romanowski pointed out, “A devout Episcopalian and Bible literalist, DeMille was also a consummate Hollywood showman with a keen sense of audience desires.” Known for baiting the censors, one has to wonder if DeMille was trying to have his cake and eat it too.

It is a miracle that The Ten Commandments survived past the early 1900s. As Eva Gordon explained in her biography of forgotten silent film star Theda Bara, no one really cared about preserving silent films (the earliest of which had become obsolete far before talkies arrived) until it was too late. By the 1930s, the fragile nitrate film stock was already disintegrating or bursting into flames. Fox Films, which later became 20th Century Fox, lost all of their silent films in a vault fire. But The Ten Commandments is one of the lucky ones. It prevails as one of the Hollywood’s most dazzling epics. Even today, it surpasses some modern blockbusters in technical and artistic achievement. The runtime may be bloated and the second half suffers because of its one-dimensional characters and uninspiring narrative, but The Ten Commandments remains one of the best spectacles in Hollywood history, a film that paved the way for a generation of epic storytelling to come.

Score: 21/24

Recommended for you: Read More Retrospective Reviews

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) 
Director: Sam Fell
Screenwriters: Karey Kirkpatrick, John O’Farrell, Rachel Tunnard
Starring: Bella Ramsey, Thandiwe Newton, Zachary Levi, Imelda Staunton, Lynn Ferguson, David Bradley, Jane Horrocks, Romesh Ranganathan, Daniel Mays, Josie Sedgwick-Jones, Peter Serafinowicz, Nick Mohammed, Miranda Richardson

On the surface, the original Chicken Run (2000) was a fantastic children’s movie and a feat for animated films. It was 90 minutes of pure feathery fun and righteous chicken anger. The movie had impeccable comedic timing akin to Aardman Studio’s other works like Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep. These movies have a beating heart and soul that has stuck with children and adults alike because of their ability to wrap us in the warm hug of their respective worlds. And still, beneath it all lies something even deeper, something profound. For many millennials and cuspers, Chicken Run was an introduction to Marxism and revolution itself. 

As rebel chicken, Ginger (played by Julia Sawalha in 2000) rallies the hens against tyrannical farmers, she dares them to imagine a world governed only by their own will. “Don’t you get it?” she clucks, “There’s no morning headcount, no dogs, no farmers, no coops and keys, and no fences.” It’s a powerful cry for revolution – a call to rise up against injustice, no matter the cost. Though the film is filled with slapstick humor, its demand to rage against oppression transcends the children’s animation genre, cementing it as a powerful allegory for World War II and universal demands for human (and chicken) rights. 

Needless to say, the sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, was highly anticipated by audiences and critics. Nearly 20 years after the original, the follow-up had big shoes to fill. What lessons would the new Chicken Run teach us? Perhaps something about the rise of fascism? Environmentalism? Maybe it would lead us to the answers we’ve all been searching for in these tumultuous times? Unfortunately, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget takes more of a formulaic follow-up approach than broaching anything remotely groundbreaking. 

In this rendition, Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky (Zachary Levi, replacing Mel Gibson) return, now living in an idyllic, poultry utopia. Though they are happy in their new homes, they are closed off from the rest of society. Their daughter, Molly (Bella Ramsey), takes after her mother and dreams of life bigger than their confined existence on the island. Soon, Molly escapes to the mainland and finds herself trapped in a chicken factory called Fun-Land Farm. Now, it’s up to the other chickens to break into the factory, a subversion from the previous film’s breakout. 

Dawn of the Nugget isn’t completely without charm. The animation is beautiful and bright, stepping away from the original film’s muted color palate to favor a more vibrant chicken paradise. Fun-Land Farm is garishly bright, showcasing the false promises of the deceptively named poultry plant. Even the heist-like stunts feel higher stakes and more elaborate. There are more hijinks, slipping, falling, and scrambling than ever. 

Though the scale feels dialled up to 11, the film is missing its original creativity and simplistic but resilient spirit that made it an instant classic. Dawn of the Nugget is much more concerned with simple tropes like breaking away from tradition and marching to the beat of your own drum than anything revolutionary. Its simple premise and resistance to taking risks – both thematically and comedically – make the 101-minute run feel like a bit of a slog. 

It’s a lot to ask of a film – to be both a succinct manifesto about the state of modern politics and revolutionary movements and a hokey comedy about chickens falling on their heads – but it has been done before. Perhaps the reason Dawn of the Nugget felt so flat is the enormous shadow its predecessor casts upon the film. And, in the 20 years in between the first and second editions of Ginger and Rocky’s story, we’ve had plenty of time to fill in the gaps on our own. Dawn of the Nugget is a fine movie to turn on for the kids on a Saturday afternoon, but turn on Chicken Run (2000) and you might just have a revolution on your hands. 

Score: 12/24

Recommended for you: Aardman Animation Movies 2000-2020 Ranked

Godzilla Minus One / Gojira -1.0 (2023)
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Screenwriter: Takashi Yamazaki
Starring: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Mio Tanaka, Sae Nagatani

As visually polished and park-your-brain-at-the-door fun as the Hollywood Godzilla films are, they aren’t exactly overflowing with big ideas or thematic subtext. That’s what the Japanese Toho movies are for. Now, with their most famous character in a shared custody arrangement with Legendary Pictures that currently allows them to unleash a new Gojira film only in years that don’t include a competing US Monsterverse release, they’ve come out of the gate in 2023 with an absolute barnstormer.

In the final months of World War II, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a kamikaze pilot deserter, witnesses the massacre of an engineering crew by an ancient dinosaur-like monster. As he returns to life in a bombed-out Tokyo recovering from the US Pacific Campaign, he gains a new family in Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and an adopted little girl. Soon the creature reappears, now mutated to a colossal size by radiation from nuclear weapons testing, and begins a new path of destruction across a country still in turmoil. 

Refreshingly for a kaiju monster movie, the human element is at the forefront of the filmmakers’ minds and, as evidenced by movies ranging from Jaws to Independence Day, it pays dividends to spend so much time on character development early on so you actually care when their world starts going to hell. The film highlights an unconventional family unit made up of unmarried domestic partners and an unrelated child rescued from the streets, which seems a little anachronistic at first (and Koichi’s domestic setup does give his colleagues pause the first time they visit him at home) but there must have been so many similar relationships formed out of necessity in the immediate aftermath of a costly war. This group of protagonists including military personnel, scientists and civilians of various stripes is perhaps the most compelling in any Godzilla movie. Hugely gratifyingly, everyone – but especially the guilt-ridden Koichi and his insecure partner Noriko, who both need to decide to truly live their new lives – has their own story to tell and their demons to face. 

In addition to often leaving the human element buried under rubble, the Hollywood Godzilla movies also don’t always manage to convey the sense of scale behind all the CG gleam and the dazzle of environmental effects. That’s never a problem here when we’re placed on a level with nuanced and grounded characters going through a waking nightmare and seeing the monster’s impact in their immediate vicinity.

Godzilla is no longer portrayed by a guy stomping around in a rubber suit, but even with modern VFX everything has weight and feels pleasingly tactile, a slow but inevitable doom on the horizon. The VFX teams are clearly proud of their work as aside from a brief prologue straight out of Jurassic Park, the Godzilla action takes place in broad daylight and is never obscured by a choppy edit. Even when he’s not on screen, his ominous presence is felt; an existential threat evoking recent atrocities that requires a nation trying to rebuild to once again make an immense sacrifice. Perhaps even more than the visuals, what gives these set pieces such impact is the punchy sound design that rattles you to your core.

It’s incredible how well the film’s modest budget (under $15million) has been utilised here, director Takashi Yamazaki also supervising the visual effects as he did with the last big screen Toho monster blockbuster Shin Godzilla (2016). There is very little sign of obvious fix-it-in-post work and the real in-camera elements, the subtle VFX used to extend and enhance, and the more explicitly fantastical, blend together beautifully.

Over the decades, directors behind Godzilla movies have alternated between casting the big scaly guy as an unknowable, nigh-on indestructible force (see Godzilla ‘54, and Godzilla 2000) or as a reluctant defender of people and the planet from far worse threats (Invasion of the Astro-Monster, King of the Monsters) and something in-between. Here, Godzilla is terrifying again; pointedly bringing with him the power not only to smash buildings and tear apart warships but the threat of further nuclear devastation, his distinctive dorsal spines now extending row-by-row to indicate a countdown to him unleashing his atomic breath.

The powder is kept dry on Akira Ifukube’s instantly recognisable original theme music until we see a sequence that directly lifts perhaps the most iconic image from the original 1954 movie. Naoki Sato’s new score melds really well with the classic music that is sampled and adds to the gut-vibrating richness of the soundscape as a whole.

Militarism and the tragic waste of war is rightly framed as abhorrent, and Japan’s uncomfortable place caught between the US and the Soviet Union’s post-WWII battle for territory is an interesting point highlighted in the script, but the film stops short of deeply interrogating the feelings of the late 1940s Japanese citizens about the right-wing nationalist ideology and the code of honour that demanded death before surrender that their country so recently operated under. This, along with an (if not predictable then) unsurprising final act are still minor quibbles when everything else is so well executed. 

Godzilla Minus One has a very strong claim to being the best kaiju movie in 70 years. It gives an iconic Japanese monster his power back by combining grounded characterisation, some incisive thematic exploration, and technical excellence. The American Godzilla movies are fun and all, but this is proof not only that you can use dumb spectacle to articulate something really smart but that Japan’s greatest metaphor in pop culture is still awe-inspiring and more relevant than ever. The major Hollywood studios need to take note of this film’s worldwide success and maybe start greenlighting more modest genre efforts with real personality and something to say. 

Score: 22/24

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Maestro (2023)
Director: Bradley Cooper
Screenwriter: Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Sam Nivola

When On the Waterfront opened in 1954, its score gained just as much critical praise as any other element of the film – which isn’t a light feat considering it won eight Oscars. Amazingly, it would remain Leonard Bernstein’s only contribution to cinema. At least, his only contribution that was intended to be part of a film – the music he composed for West Side Story is probably some of his most iconic work, but it was composed for the stage rather than for the screen. For a character as big as Bernstein with a mark on American culture of similar stature, it’s amazing to think that it has taken this long for his second mark on cinema to be made.

Bradley Cooper writes, directs, and stars in Maestro as the man himself. Cooper’s belief in his own ability to multitask is clearly quite strong, and its strength is only matched by his ambition to make a film that spans a life as long and as rich as Bernstein’s. We meet him as an old man who has already done it all, and then we take a step back into his mid-twenties in the early 1940s.

Maestro is a rare case in which style becomes substance. Bradley Cooper’s performance as Bernstein changes to fit each historical era that the film visits – he is more stagey and theatrical in the 40s, and looser and, seemingly, more improvisational in the 70s. It’s not only Cooper’s performance that changes – the cinematography changes to suit the era it’s portraying in more ways than just the use of black and white footage for the older sequences.

As Bernstein himself ages with constantly shifting makeup and facial prosthetics, the look and feel of the world around him informs us as to when it is all taking place by becoming a part of the era it’s portraying. When it’s showing us something from the 40s, it could easily be dropped into a Charlie Chaplin film, whereas the shots that take place in the 70s could be mistaken for Deliverance. In the few glimpses we get into the 80s, it has the atmosphere of a cheesy Miami-set disposable action movie.

The only aspect that isn’t changing and reinventing itself throughout is Felicia, Bernstein’s wife portrayed by Carey Mulligan. Mulligan’s performance is in such stark contrast to Cooper’s that it accentuates both of their characters – Felicia is caring and stable while Leonard is passionate and erratic. They aren’t compatible as lovers, but they share a warmth towards each other that neither takes for granted.

Bernstein is such a flawed character that, if it wasn’t for Felicia’s stability beside him, it would be hard to empathise with why he makes such chaotic life choices at every available opportunity. Maestro never advocates for those choices or attempts to put Bernstein in a light that he isn’t worthy of – it’s as critical of him as it needs to be – but seeing how quickly his personality and his life can change does go some way to creating some relatability for how he could become so self-destructive. A kind light is encouraged by the wealth of context that we’re afforded.

Of course, Maestro isn’t breaking new ground in telling quite a personal story in contrast to an otherwise well-crafted public image. Tár even beat it to be the first one about a conductor to be released in the 2020s. The best comparison for Maestro, however, is probably in something it’s the opposite of, The Greatest Showman. They’re both films about Americans who broke new ground in their respective eras – the former as the first American to lead a symphony orchestra and the latter as the American (P. T. Barnum) who popularised the circus. What makes Maestro and The Greatest Showman so different, though, is that Maestro never attempts to glorify its subject under the pretence that his achievements should outweigh his character. It celebrates his art while retaining the integrity of his flaws.

What it all amounts to is a biopic that is long overdue but served well by its existence now that it is finally here. Bradley Cooper has managed to make Maestro a thoughtful depiction of Leonard Bernstein’s life and character, but also of the world that shaped him and the people who were around him for it all.

Score: 17/24

Written by Rob Jones

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Wonka (2023)
Director: Paul King
Screenwriters: Simon Farnaby, Paul King
Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Olivia Colman, Matt Lucas, Matthew Baynton, Tom Davis, Hugh Grant

Willy Wonka is an enigma. In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), the original adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” we don’t learn much about him, other than his desire to find an heir to his candy empire, as well as the cruel delight he takes in teaching naughty children a lesson. Wonka is charming and a little unhinged, paranoid from all of the years he has spent locked away in his factory, making sure no one gets their hands on the secret to his out-of-this-world sweets. With a devilish smile and a playful yet devious twinkle in his eye, actor Gene Wilder infuses Wonka with dimension, but we never dig too deep. He’s a nut that we never quite crack, and he works as a character because of that. There’s a reason why the original novel is called “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” after all – at the end of the day, it’s Charlie’s journey. Wilder’s performance hints at the layers inside of Wonka that we don’t need to unpeel, but nevertheless know are there. Wonka, the spiritual prequel to the 1971 musical classic, helmed by Paddington director Paul King, does unpeel those layers, but what’s found underneath is a deeply disappointing origin story that lacks the magic and edge that the original (and even Tim Burton’s 2005 remake) has in spades. Touted as a fun-for-the-whole family Christmas classic in the making, Wonka simply doesn’t have enough sparkle to ever hope to achieve that distinction.

Despite its tagline, which insists we will find out how “Willy became Wonka,” Timothée Chalamet’s version of the famous candy maker and magician doesn’t actually become anything. He just kind of already is.

The film begins with Willy, bright-eyed and bursting with optimism, atop a ship mast, where he begins his “I Want” song, “Hatful of Dreams”. Willy arrives in an unnamed city, fresh off the boat, ready to share his chocolate with the world, as his mother (Sally Hawkins) always hoped he would. Willy is earnest and determined, living on nothing but a dream. But the Galeries Gourmet is not what Willy initially imagined it would be. Instead of spreading his creations, he faces opposition and sabotage from three greedy chocolate makers, including Arthur Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), who will soon become his arch-nemesis. Willy then gets tricked into indentured servitude because he cannot read and fails to read the small print on his contract with Mrs. Scrubitt, played by Olivia Colman doing her best over the top Madame Thénardier impression. Aided by Noodle (Calah Lane), a fellow indentured servant and orphan who becomes Willy’s assistant, as well as the rest of the workers, Wonka bids to outsmart the trio and earn the freedom of himself and his friends.

Timothée Chalamet might be the only saving grace in the film, contrary to early assumptions that he may have been miscast. At times he’s charming, funny and endearing, but his performance is constantly in flux and dependent on the material and direction he’s given. When his jokes don’t land, his performance falls flat, even though he is clearly committed to the bit. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to do an impression of Gene Wilder, but he also doesn’t make the character enough of his own to really stand out. This isn’t his fault; he isn’t given much to work with.

All of the obstacles Willy encounters are external. Whether it’s Mrs. Scrubitt’s dishonest business practices, the antics of the greedy chocolatiers, or Hugh Grant’s Oompa-Loompa hijinks, the plot is always happening to Willy. He is almost entirely a reactionary character, and this is a problem in a movie that is supposed to be an origin story, the story of how he became who he is. It would have been nice if he actively participated in the narrative…

Willy’s desire to share his inventions with the world just as his mother hoped is sweet and admirable, but it simply isn’t enough to drive what we see. The writers, King and Paddington 2 co-writer Simon Farnaby (who also appears in Wonka as Basil), were backed into a corner considering Willy Wonka is a recluse by the time we meet him in the original movie. Telling that story would certainly be more interesting, but not very uplifting, so the filmmakers sidestep it entirely. As a result, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between Chalamet’s Wonka and Wilder’s.

Demystifying a character that works the best when we don’t know everything about him is a non-starter (as proven in Star Wars spin-off Solo), but the filmmakers didn’t give much thought to the supporting characters either. Lane and Chalamet work well together, and their friendship is a bright spot in the movie, but most of the supporting characters are so thinly drawn they barely register as real people. As for Hugh Grant’s Lofty, an Oompa Loompa who has been stealing Willy’s candy because he was excommunicated from Oompa Land until he can get back all of the chocolate that Willy stole, he’s surprisingly in very little of the film. The motion capture is jarring and unconvincing, but at least Grant’s contempt for the role, which he has expressed in several recent interviews, doesn’t show on screen.

Wonka, like the original film adaptation, is a musical, but not a very good one. The songs, written by Neil Hannon, King, Farnaby, and Joby Talbot, are unremarkable and lack passion, which is a shame considering Hannon’s exceptional work with The Divine Comedy. The songs in Wonka, especially Willy’s “Hatful of Dreams,” pale in comparison to those written by Howard Ashman, the songwriting genius behind the iconic tunes of The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). By comparison, “Hatful of Dreams” lacks interiority or reflection. Perhaps the biggest faux pas in this regard is how Willy’s desire to sell chocolates in the hopes of reconnecting with the spirit of his late mother is barely mentioned. Songs in musicals should, in theory, take place when characters are so full of emotion that words no longer feel enough. And then, they must dance when singing doesn’t feel enough. But nothing drives the songs in this movie and they don’t feel needed. They are boring and directionless. Chalamet’s voice is fine, if a little weak and thin in places, but it’s worth noting that his best performance is when he sings “Pure Imagination”, a song not originally written for this film.

Wonka also strips away any of the melancholy or dark comedy found both in the 1971 movie and Roald Dahl’s overall work. The 1971 film feels a lot like “Alice in Wonderland” in that it is a dreamlike and slightly menacing descent into a magical world, but Wonka smooths all those edges out. As a result, the movie is sickly sweet and above all, nice. Which is ironic, because while the filmmakers were busy adding uplifting lyrics to “Pure Imagination” and simplifying the orchestrations, themes, and social commentaries of the 1971 film, they also made time to make several offensive and outdated fat jokes, aimed at Keegan Michael Key’s Chief of Police, who is dressed in a ridiculous fat suit and gets fatter and fatter the more he indulges in the sweets the greedy chocolate makers use to bribe him with. Using fatness as a shorthand for gluttony and greed, and having an actor who is not fat perform fatness, is hurtful and mean-spirited. It’s hard to believe such an antiquated trope is included in a film made in 2023 – especially one made about the wonderful taste of sweet treats – and it sours the viewing experience. For all of the niceness this movie tries desperately to exude, it makes sure to keep one of the only things from the original film that actually needed updating.

If Wonka is trying to say something, it’s hard to know what that something is. The film plays with themes of oppression, poverty, and greed, but doesn’t do much with them. It would be a losing battle to assume that Western filmmaking would trust its young audience enough to sprinkle in some adult themes, but it is equally weird to mention them in passing and not engage with them. Believing in your dreams and sharing those dreams with others should feel like magic, but the film doesn’t allow us to know these characters enough to genuinely care about them or their dreams.

The sets also leave something to be desired. When Wonka first unveils his factory in the original film, it’s a technicolor dream, calling to mind the reveal of the land of Oz in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. It is bright and colorful and a little surreal. Wonka feels like a step down in comparison, and the filmmakers’ decision to set a good chunk of the film in the Galeries Gourtmet makes the world of Wonka feel like it’s just floating in space surrounded by nothing. It is small and claustrophobic.

Prequels bait us with the promise that we will get to see some of our most beloved characters become the people we love and remember from our childhoods. In Wonka, Willy may be younger and brighter and less mad than he will soon become, but if you are counting on the film to show you how that happens, you will be very disappointed. Instead, Wonka is a barely passable movie musical that is so sugary it ends up choking on its own sweetness.

Score: 12/24

Recommended for you: ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ (1971) Earned a Spot in Joseph Wade’s 10 Best Films of All Time

According to Screencraft, there are six essential elements to a Christmas film: nostalgia, magic, family, atmosphere, hope, and redemption. These can all be easily applied to festive classics we know and love, such as the iconic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), the joyous Elf (2003), and the British household staple Nativity! (2009).

Even so, there has been debate upon debate about whether certain films can be entered into the yuletide Hall of Fame, the most prominent of these being Die Hard (1988). One film that should be considered but seems to fly under the radar is Steven Spielberg’s 2002 crime caper and comedy-drama Catch Me If You Can.

Released on Christmas Day, the film is based on the true story of how teenager Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) successfully pulled off confidence schemes worth millions of dollars by impersonating a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, all whilst evading the clutches of FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks).

Doesn’t sound very Christmassy, right? Wrong!

Spielberg’s caper immediately establishes the film’s sense of nostalgia through its period setting of the 1960s. We are transported back in time to when banks didn’t have high-tech security, Pan Am was the kingpin of American air travel, and Frank’s ugly orange knitted vest was considered fashionable. These are all nostalgic for the people who grew up in and around the 1960s, and that group would have been the target audience for this film back in 2002.

The film’s sense of nostalgia still holds up today. There is a scene in which Frank, in the midst of his pilot con, goes to the cinema to watch the iconic James Bond film of the era Dr. No (1962), then it cuts to him having a suit measured. What name does he give the tailor? Ian Fleming, the author of James Bond.

In a way, it’s magic. Which is, of course, a key ingredient of a Christmas film.

Whilst the magic isn’t depicted in the stereotypical manner of wizards and fairy dust, Frank is represented as an immoral magician, right from the moment he steps into his classroom in a new school and hoodwinks his class into thinking he is the substitute teacher. We buy into the grand scale of Frank’s ongoing mastery of disguise and sleight of hand, and it makes for entertaining viewing even if certain elements of the true story have been widely disputed.

As with most Spielberg films, one of the central themes is a broken home and the effects it has on the children involved. If anything screams “Christmas film” it’s the idea of family and themes of reconciliation and repairing broken relationships.

We are introduced to the tight-knit Abagnale family, with Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken) receiving an award as his wife Paula (Nathalie Baye) and son Frank watch on in admiration. We then cut to a scene in which Frank watches his parents dancing by the family Christmas tree, as Frank Sr. recounts the story of how he and Paula met. From here, the idyllic family life takes a turn when Frank Sr.’s tax problems and Paula’s affair ultimately lead to their divorce. Upon being forced to choose which parent to live with, Frank rebels by running away from upstate New York to the City, thus kickstarting his career as a high-stakes con artist.

Throughout the film, we see Frank meeting up with his father, hoping that the money he has made will convince his parents to reconcile and make their living situation go back to the way it was. Frank Sr. resists this idea, having moved on and accepted what happened. This upsets Frank, who plunges deeper and deeper into his scams.

The film’s heartbreaking climactic moment comes years later, as Carl tells Frank that his father has died whilst they are flying back to the US. Distraught, Frank escapes the plane and finds the house of his mother, who has a new family. This prompts Frank to finally stop running and to surrender to Carl and the FBI.

In the climax, Frank sees his mother’s new family on Christmas Day, where there are fairy lights and a tree just like the one in the start of film. He looks on through the window, excluded from the life he used to have and desperately longed to have back. The beautiful tones of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” underpin the emotional weight of the scene, with the warmth of the classic song heavily contrasting Frank being left out in the cold.

Christmas Eve itself is a recurring motif throughout the film. Frank calls Carl to provoke him to send a team to chase him and apologise for their last encounter. Carl sees through this, realising that Frank has nobody to talk to. A few years later, Frank calls Carl on that day to tell him that he wants a truce, as he is getting married. Carl declines, saying that he will be caught and put in prison. Their final interaction on this day comes when Carl tracks Frank down to Montrichard, where his father met his mother on Christmas Eve. Frank is subsequently arrested by French police.

Hope is another seasonally relevant key theme throughout Catch Me If You Can, as Frank’s schemes are based upon his hope that the rewards will prompt his parents to get back together. The naivety of this notion makes the film’s climax all that more heartbreaking. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in this regard is phenomenal, as he is able to shape-shift from a cocky kid playing the part of an adult into an anxious young boy going through a traumatic change in his life when he is on the brink of adulthood. It is certainly a gamble to cast a 32 year-old as a 16 year-old, but it paid off. Spielberg is able to utilise the actor’s talents to convey this loss of childlike hope over time, presenting a type of coming-of-age we often see in Christmas films like Elf and Meet Me In St. Louis.

At the end of the film, after Frank is sentenced to 12 years in prison, Carl offers him an opportunity for redemption, as he realises that Frank’s conning skills can be utilised to help the FBI detect fraud. Frank accepts serving the rest of his sentence by working at the FBI, but finds that an office job is incredibly tedious. Frank prepares to impersonate a pilot one last time, but Carl finds him in the airport, saying nobody is chasing him. He tries to question Carl about his family, as Carl reveals that he is the father in a broken home, with a daughter not much younger than Frank himself. At that moment, we think Frank is going to go through with the con, but he appears back at the FBI and the film ends with him and Carl discussing one of the cons in great depth. This is a bright, feel-good ending reminiscent of any number of great Christmas films, and one that arguably ties their father-son-like relationship together, revealing to us a found family staple of a deeply unconventional nature but a wholly Christmas one nonetheless.

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

Sauron shows no signs of stopping even as Isengard crumbles. His eyes are on Minis Tirith, the last beacon of hope for Gondor. While Merry and Pippin are reunited with the Fellowship (though not for too long), Frodo and Sam are now right under Sauron’s eye, behind the gates of Mordor. There’s treachery afoot, battles to win, fathers to impress, and cities to conquer. And a king to return.

Will Middle Earth succumb to evil? Will Sam ever see the Shire again? Will Pippin be a fool until he dies?

Will Frodo destroy the ring?

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from the gripping conclusion of Peter Jackson’s fantasy saga, for this: the 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Mount Doom Erupts

Inside the volcano things aren’t moving fast enough. The ring isn’t melting. Just as it looks like our King will be defeated, Sauron’s tower falls and the eye implodes. The ground surrounding the heroes disintegrates, taking the orcs and trolls with it.

It’s over. They’ve won.

Or have they?

In the seconds after everyone’s elation, Mount Doom explodes. Everyone looks crestfallen as Sam and Frodo are still up there. This device has been used before with Gandalf and the Balrog, Aragorn and the warg. For a second, this feels different. There is a moment when we truly believe that Sam and Frodo made the ultimate sacrifice.

Recommended for you: 10 Best Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Moments

9. Merry and Pippin Lead the Charge

Vastly outnumbered, Aragorn and his followers head to the black gate to draw Sauron’s eye while Sam and Frodo make the final leg of their journey into Mount Doom. Aragorn’s “not this day” speech is stirring and emotional. This is it. It’s now or never.

“For Frodo!” Is the battle cry.

And, in an army of a thousand experienced soldiers, it is Merry and Pippin who run first. They’ve come so far from the firework stealing miscreants of the first film. They are warriors as brave as any man or elf.

Middle parts of trilogies are often the worst. They have to do so much bridging and they don’t get the satisfaction of story arc conclusions as they are too busy setting up what comes next instead.

The Two Towers does not fall prey to this. It is as exciting as the first film, while having the luxury of our investment. Everyone cares very deeply about what happens to what remains of the Fellowship. A host of new characters are introduced as the battle for Middle Earth continues, the most significant being the people of Rohan. And an extra woman, Éowyn (Miranda Otto), to boot.

The Two Towers is filled with lengthy battles, death and despair, and yet it still manages to be warm-hearted, full of humour and hopeful.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from Peter Jackson’s timeless epic, for this: the 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. The Nazgûl

The Wraiths were scary enough in The Fellowship of the Ring, but in The Two Towers they’ve been promoted. Now referred to as Nazgûl, which feels more sinister, and on the backs of great dragons, these agents of Sauron really are a force to be reckoned with.

The screeching, sniffing presence of them over the Dead Marshes as Sam and Frodo cower is the taster, but as their giant wingspans cast a shadow over the city of Osgiliath they truly are a sight to behold.

Recommended for you: 10 Best The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moments

9. The Uruk-hais March

The Two Towers is a film with many battles, and obviously we are rooting for the good guys, but the final march of the Uruk-hais as they approach Helm’s Deep is nothing short of majestic.

Thousands upon thousands of them marching in time, lit by flickering torches, metal clanging and roaring like lions. They have no morals and no fear. The juxtaposition between them and the rag-tag army Aragorn has managed to gather does an excellent job of building tension.  

Middle Earth is under threat as Sauron, a great malevolent force, is gathering power. The lands of men, elves, wizards, and dwarfs have lived for hundreds of years believing the great evil had been vanquished. Wowzers, were they wrong.

It’s all down to the hobbits – long-living, hairy-footed, ale-swigging, home-comfort-loving people about the size of a human child – to fix it. Turns out Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) has been in procession of a very precious, very dangerous artifact since his exploits in “The Hobbit” 70 years prior.

The task to return the ring is placed in the tiny hands of his nephew, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood). It’s all fine though, because Gandalf (Ian McKellen) has arranged for a band of warriors, a fellowship if you will, to help him on this perilous journey.

The Fellowship of the Ring thrust director Peter Jackson and its cast members into the stratosphere of fame. While some depictions may be considered problematic by today’s standards, and Lord of the Rings certainly isn’t passing any Bechdel test, the classic struggle of good versus evil means it remains popular over twenty years later.

In this Movie List from The Film Magazine, we are counting down the most impactful, hilarious and memorable moments from Peter Jackson’s timeless epic, for this: the 10 Best Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moments.

Follow @thefilmagazine on X (Twitter).

10. Gardening

The scene has been set, the Hobbits introduced, and Frodo (Elijah Wood) has begrudgingly accepted his mission. While Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is asserting the grave danger the young hobbit will face, he hears a crack outside. An eavesdropper? A spy from the very depths of Mordor? Or perhaps, just a gardener? Gandalf lunges with his staff, and pulls out of the perennials, Samwise Gamgee (Sean Austin).

This is a great introduction to Sam as it shows his cheek, tenacity, and loyalty.

Recommended for you: The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit Movies Ranked

9. The Ringwraiths Attack

Tolkien built a very serious world with realms of peril and intense men conversing. Peter Jackson’s rendering of this world adds a much-needed dose of humour. The Fellowship of the Ring is not afraid to poke fun at itself a little bit.

The Ringwraiths are a terrifying sight (and sound). These are the creatures that all of Middle Earth is afraid of. The wraiths with their metal hands and black cloaks attacking pillows hidden beneath the bedspreads in the Prancing Pony is a scooby-doo-esque flash of comedy.