Movie Review: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

★★★★★

Willy Wonka is the weirdest, wildest, most wonderful movie I’ve ever seen. I still kind of want to live in a chocolate river factory.

Steve A.

Oregon

Rewatching Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory for BoxReview.com, I was reminded that it’s not just a charming children’s film, it’s a strangely layered piece of cinema that flirts with satire, surrealism, and even mild horror, all wrapped in Technicolor sweetness.

Everyone remembers the golden tickets, the chocolate river, and “Pure Imagination,” but what’s fascinating on a revisit is how director Mel Stuart blends wonder with unease. It’s a movie that smiles at you while hinting that maybe just maybe you’re in over your head.

The Premise: A Golden Ticket to the Unknown

The story is simple on the surface: poor but kind-hearted Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) wins one of five golden tickets granting entry into Willy Wonka’s mysterious chocolate factory. Alongside four other children, each embodying a different vice, Charlie embarks on a fantastical tour led by the eccentric, mercurial Wonka (Gene Wilder).

The setup suggests a gentle morality tale, but the execution is sharper and more unpredictable than most family films of its time.

Gene Wilder: Master of Ambiguity

Gene Wilder’s portrayal of Willy Wonka is the heart, soul, and question mark of this film. From his famous limp-into-somersault entrance, he keeps the audience off balance. Is he a benevolent candy maker? A mischievous trickster? Or something more sinister?

One under-discussed element is how Wilder uses pauses, half-smiles, and sudden tonal shifts to create a sense of unpredictability. As a kid, you buy into the magic. As an adult, you notice the veiled sarcasm, the almost condescending asides, and the fact that Wonka never really rushes to save the kids when things go wrong.

It’s a performance that rewards multiple viewings because your perception of him changes depending on your age, from playful magician to morally ambiguous puppet master.

The Children: Living Lessons in Vice

Each of the other four ticket holders represents a human flaw: Augustus Gloop’s gluttony, Veruca Salt’s greed, Violet Beauregarde’s arrogance, and Mike Teevee’s obsession with screens and violence.

What’s rarely discussed is how quickly each is dispatched from the tour. The film wastes no time punishing bad behavior, and the consequences, though cartoonish, are still unsettling. These scenes play like cautionary fables entertaining for kids, but with a sharp edge for adults.

Veruca’s musical tantrum “I Want It Now” is a standout example: staged in the factory’s golden egg room, it’s basically a show tune about entitlement leading to ruin. As a child, you laugh. As an adult, it’s a biting commentary on spoiled privilege.

Peter Ostrum: The One-Time Charlie

Peter Ostrum only ever acted in this one film, and that gives his portrayal of Charlie a kind of earnest authenticity. He’s the moral counterbalance to the other children, polite, curious, and humble.

What’s interesting is that Charlie isn’t perfect; he’s tempted, he makes mistakes (the Fizzy Lifting Drinks incident), but he owns up to them. That nuance keeps him from being a one-note “good kid” stereotype.

The Look of the Film: Practical Magic

The production design is still impressive over 50 years later. The chocolate room with its edible landscape feels genuinely tactile, not the hyper-polished CGI of modern adaptations. The colors are vibrant without being sterile; there’s an almost handmade quality that makes the factory feel both inviting and slightly unsafe.

The factory’s design shifts depending on the scene, whimsical in the candy gardens, sterile in the inventing room, and borderline nightmarish in the infamous boat tunnel sequence.

The Boat Tunnel: A Horror Scene in a Kids’ Movie

Let’s talk about the boat scene. It’s one of the most jarring tonal shifts in any children’s film. Without warning, the film plunges into darkness, flashing disturbing imagery (insects crawling on faces, a chicken being decapitated) while Wonka recites cryptic, almost threatening poetry.

For many kids, it’s the first time a “safe” movie throws them a curveball. For adults, it’s a surreal interlude that breaks the fantasy just enough to keep you uneasy. It’s not there to scare for no reason; it reinforces that Wonka’s world, like life, isn’t all gumdrops and rainbows.

The Oompa-Loompas: Singing Moral Guides

The Oompa-Loompa sequences often get reduced to pop culture parody, but they serve a clever narrative function: they’re the Greek chorus of the film, offering catchy but pointed moral commentary after each child’s downfall.

The music by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley ensures the lessons stick, even if they’re sugar-coated in melody. They’re judgmental but never wrong. Each song is a rhyming diagnosis of a flaw the child refuses to change.

The Soundtrack: More Than “Pure Imagination”

While “Pure Imagination” gets the most attention (and rightfully so), the soundtrack is full of character-specific gems. “Cheer Up, Charlie” is often skipped over, but it’s a quiet emotional anchor that sets up Charlie’s sincerity and patience.

And “I Want It Now,” Veruca’s number, is a perfect blend of Broadway show tune and character assassination, a playful way to make sure her comeuppance lands with extra flair.

Under-Discussed Element: A Critique of Consumerism

Beneath the candy-colored exterior, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a sly critique of greed, indulgence, and the corrupting influence of excess. The factory is less a playground and more a series of morality traps. The characters who treat it as an all-you-can-eat buffet or a status symbol suffer swift consequences.

Even the contest itself is a marketing stunt to boost chocolate sales, hints that Wonka understands how to manipulate public desire.

Why It Still Works

Part of the reason Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory endures is that it works on multiple levels. As a child, you get the magic and wonder. As an adult, you catch the sarcasm, the satire, and the fact that this is as much a cautionary tale as it is a fantasy.

It also remains a cultural touchstone because it refuses to pander. It doesn’t sanitize its morals, and it’s unafraid to let moments linger in discomfort, something children’s media rarely does now.

Personal Take: Sweetness with Bite

Every time I revisit Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, I’m struck by how it never fully lets you relax. Even in its happiest moments, there’s an edge. That combination of joy and unease is why it sticks in your mind long after the credits roll.

For me, the magic isn’t just in the chocolate river or the Everlasting Gobstoppers, it’s in Wilder’s ability to keep you guessing what’s behind that wry smile.

Final Thoughts

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory isn’t just a kids’ movie; it’s a slyly subversive fable disguised in gumdrop colors. It’s as much about human nature as it is about candy, and that’s why it’s still being quoted, analyzed, and adored over half a century later.