‘Wonka’ Review: Whimsy in Need of a Wilder Willy

Willy Wonka is funny and sinister. Timothée Chalamet is neither funny nor sinister. Moreover, when he steps up to sing, he makes Gene Wilder sound like Frank Sinatra. He’s an odd choice to play the aspiring choco-tycoon in the musical origin story “Wonka.” Fortunately, superior talents around him work like Fizzy Lifting Drinks and raise the film off the ground.

The only reason I can think of to select Mr. Chalamet for the part seems to be that, like Wilder in the 1971 Roald Dahl adaptation “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” which remains by far the best movie about the character, he has curly hair suggesting a certain mad merriness. Yet he seems determined to be as cute and bland as possible, much like the glossy sets, which suggest a Dickensian theme park.