MadeByMark.com

Chocolate Wedding Cake

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.

Hitchhiking to Dullsville

Sunday, we bought tickets to the number one movie in America: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I first read Douglas Adam's very clever, very British novels back when I was a freshman in college. (I remember reading the first several chapters of The Hitchhiker's Guide while sitting in my eye doctor's waiting room. I kept laughing out loud, despite my best efforts. People stared.)

The book works so well, I think, because Adams has a finely tuned ear for witty dialogue. One character asks an innocent question; another misunderstands the context and garbles the answer. A third, with a dirty mind, overhears only one word and derails the exchange with a naughty comment. Frustration mounts; hilarity ensues.

So, with great expectations, I settled in to watch what I hoped would be the first great movie of the 2005 summer season.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Hitchhiker's Guide isn't just bad -- it's remarkably, shockingly, disturbingly bad. It is the cinematic equivalent of an acquaintance who believes, with all his heart, that he's funny -- when, in fact, he is the least funny person you've ever met.

The entire opening sequence -- "Thanks for All The Fish" hits all the wrong notes. The jokes fall flat. Adam's witty dialogue has been mangled by the screenwriter, reducing his brilliant prose to awkward one-liners and punchlines in search of setups. Nothing works.

This movie is the sort of stinker that no amount of glorious eye candy can save. Not that the producers didn't try: we're treated to a non-stop buffet of computer animation, digital manipulation, and stunning creature effects from Jim Henson's muppet shop. Unfortunately, none of this flashy wizardry is supported by solid script ... and so even these wonders strike the viewer as pointless.

As word of mouth kills it, watch for this movie to plummet rapidly into obscurity. If you must see it, save the ticket price and wait thirty days or so; desperate to make up revenues, the studios will have this one in your local video store ASAP.