We see two movies this weekend: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Wedding Crashers.
Wonka has its magic moments, but, despite a spiffy new ending that hawks family values, the movie struggles — and fails — to be as sweet as it wants to be. Haunted by the ghost of the original, this remake dutifully cranks out the nasty demises of the nasty children … but not even the crowd of digital Oompa Loompas can keep us from feeling that we’ve seen it all before.
By contrast, Wedding Crashers (a movie, I confess, I would have gladly passed on), was surprisingly funny. Its first two acts run pell mell through scenes spiked with gleeful vulgarity. Like so many movies these days, though, it loses its steam during the laborious last half-hour. By the time boy gets girl, the screenwriters are cannibalizing their own script, recycling formerly funny bits we chuckled at an hour earlier.
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