IN THE DARK REVIEWS

Whether you're looking for childish flights of fancy in the cinema or suspenseful spy thrillers on streaming, this week's reviews have you covered.

"Wonka" smartly seeks to appeal chiefly to those who know of its title character through 1971's "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," starring Gene Wilder, rather than Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in 2005, starring Johnny Depp, or Roald Dahl's original 1964 novel.

Wilder's Wonka shared some of the less-than-kid-friendly edge with which Dahl portrayed the character, which Timothée Chalamet's Wonka does not share, while Chalamet's Wonka does share in common with Depp's Wonka an origin story rooted in parental issues.

In contrast to the manipulative streak of Wilder's Wonka and the sheer callousness of Depp's Wonka, Chalamet's younger Wonka wears his heart on his sleeve, and in spite of having traveled the world, he falls prey to his own uneducated naivete about how the world works.

Of course, by making Wonka younger, "Wonka" works because it's understood that Chalamet's version hasn't yet grown into the cannier man he'll become, which allows him to remain a precocious dreamer in this prequel, however much he's already honed his arts as a chocolatier.

As fables, the tales of Willy Wonka work best when they occupy a relatively nebulous place in time and space, and in its fashions, architecture and technology, "Wonka" borrows liberally from eras ranging from the Victorian and Edwardian to the 1930s and '40s, just as the fictional coastal city where it takes place can only be narrowed down to "cosmopolitan European."

Chalamet remains as charismatic as ever as young Willy Wonka, even as I worry that Disney will see this role and strong-arm the BBC into casting him in a "Young Doctor Who" prequel.

He's ably assisted by a murderer's row of perfectly cast comedic talent that runs toward the pantomime end of the scale, with notable performances by a greedy Keegan-Michael Key, a suitably snarling Paterson Joseph, an amusingly unsubtle Matt Lucas, Rowan Atkinson in hysterics, Olivia Colman turning a cockney accent into a goose's honk, Tom Davis getting hilarious action out of lederhosen, and Hugh Grant delivering a deadpan that's enhanced by how clearly he doesn't want to be there.

Speaking as a musical agnostic, the songs of "Wonka" strike the right balance, for me, of being clever, catchy, deployed at emotionally appropriate moments, and getting out of the way once they've made their point.

Just as importantly, "Wonka" lives up to its lyrical promise to treat its audiences to "a world of pure imagination," not only through appealingly silly conceits such as a vast church cathedral-based holding tank of liquid chocolate guarded by chocoholic monks, but also by introducing impossibly fantastical varieties of chocolate, such as those that allow their consumers to fly, find the bright side in bad situations, and experience an entire night out on the town in a single sweet.

When I watched "Wonka" in the theater, all the children surrounding me were so excited by its action and visuals they could barely stay in their seats.

On the opposite end of the age-appropriate spectrum, the world's worst secret agents are back, as "Slow Horses" races through its third six-episode season, Wednesdays on Apple TV+.

In this series, "Slow Horses" is the term for British MI5 agents who botch their assignments badly enough to be consigned to the division of ill-repute known as "Slough House," and because Slough House has such an indelibly negative reputation, the irony is that any "Slow Horse" who then manages to outperform any nondisgraced MI5 agents will wind up in even bigger trouble, for making the rest of the security service look worse than themselves.

The show's vibe is curdled le Carré, with effortlessly excellent performances by Gary Oldman as slovenly Slough House head Jackson Lamb, Saskia Reeves as his loyal administrator Catherine Standish, Kristin Scott Thomas as the ambitious MI5 Deputy Director-General Diana Taverner, and silver-haired Sophie Okonedo as the ruthless and steely MI5 Director-General Ingrid Tearney.

The current season's plot has revealed itself in onion-like layers, with an up-to-the-minute preoccupation with private military contractors, such as America's Blackwater and Russia's Wagner Group, as each new disclosure changes the context of what we (and the characters) had only just learned.

Such a succession of double-back reversals, of everything they (and we) believed, leads to several satisfying moments of smug-snake aspiring manipulators realizing their ill-gotten gains have been dashed into dust.

Just as "Slow Horses" can be punished for outshining their peers, so too are any good deeds they might volunteer all-too-often rewarded with betrayals from the highest levels.

Such a caustically cynical worldview would be harder to swallow without this show's considerable pool of talent, with even minor supporting roles occupied by master-class actors including Jonathan Pryce, and its pomposity-deflating gallows humor, as the disrespectful irreverence of Oldman's Lamb leaves the narrative's would-be masters of the universe fuming impotently.

As much unearned power as these creatures of bureaucracy wield in wrongfully self-serving ways, it's strangely egalitarian to see they're far from immune from their own often-catastrophic social ineptitude.

Dec. 20 marks the premiere of this season's penultimate episode, "Cleaning Up," and its buildup has left me wondering how, or even if, all our primary players might make it through this debacle because the "Slow Horses" have incurred casualties in previous seasons.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
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