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Thoughts : Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

Nicolas Cage has built a career out of occasionally interspersing his unique characterizations in random films with a sort of inverse approach involving an unchained Cage as the figurehead of a story so off the wall that only Cage could carry the weight of it.  That’s why it was no surprise that an immediate groundswell of buzz and anticipation occurred when Willy’s Wonderland was announced.  To the average movie-goer, any opportunity to witness a Cage-rage (as one of my coworkers refers to the Cage approach) is a welcome one, and seeing him beat down human-sized android puppets sounds too good to miss out on.  For those aware of Five Nights at Freddy’s, however, the film seemed like an attempt to steal the thunder from a film that will automatically have a built-in fanbase if (or more likely, when) the trigger is pulled on production and release.  That being said, Hulu came to the rescue and picked up the streaming rights to Willy’s Wonderland, meaning I had no excuse for not seeing this fever dream of a flick.

What we are looking at is a unique two-fisted cash grab attempt, and luckily, each fist contains the main elements worth talking about in this film, as honestly, there is not much going on here.  We’ll start with the elephant in the room before diving into the obvious realm : this is basically the Wish version of a Five Nights at Freddy’s film, with a healthy dose of R.L. Stine-inspired lore building tossed in to give the film a sense of purpose or narrative thrust.  First and foremost, there is BARELY a narrative arc to this film, and many of the story beats feel tacked on purely for the need of having the parts of the story that aren’t Willy’s-centered still feel like they’re moving forward.  With Five Nights at Freddy’s already being a dark take on the real-life Showbiz Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese’s establishments that dot the nation, taking it one step deeper with Willy’s Wonderland gives the film’s creators a false sense of agency in terms of the need for backstory.  We are literally dropped into the proceedings with the barest bones of a flashback sequence before being asked to buy into no less that 4 sets of character stories, three of which consistently managing to bring the portions not involving the centerpiece of the show to a cringe-filled crawl.

Speaking of the centerpiece of the show, the other obvious attempt to bring curious viewers to Willy’s Wonderland is the lure of the most curious star in the Hollywood system : the enigma that is Nicolas Cage.  It’s no secret that Cage has built up an extremely varied career of roles that fall all over the highlight and lowlight spectrum, many of which appear to be blatant cash grabs to keep him financially in a head above water situation (allegedly, as I am not his accountant).  Willy’s Wonderland falls completely into the same realm for Cage of films like Jiu Jitsu, the upcoming The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Left Behind and so on, where the addition of Nicolas Cage is meant to lift the credibility of the content by association, and the anticipation of Cage going off the rails is implied by his connection.  With this in mind, I’ve got to give it to Cage for continuously being able to cash in on properties like this while still managing to maintain some version of star power, as trying to imagine the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Brendan Frasier, Johnny Knoxville or some other ridiculously outlandish casting immediately makes this film way less interesting.

From the outside looking in, it appears that the budget was mainly allocated to two realms : the animatronics and however much it cost to include Nicolas Cage in the cast.  The work on the animatronics is one of the few saving graces for Willy’s Wonderland, as each puppet has just enough of a unique look to have them stand out from one another.  The movement of each figure matches their personality, and the gore effects for each animatronic kill really give those highlight moments additional impact.  The visual look is otherwise a bit dry in terms of color timing... there is quite a bit of eye-catching fluorescents once we enter the Willy’s establishment, but everything in the film (including these sequences) are so washed out that it mutes the effect... my guess is that they were looking to capture a living and breathing comic book look, which is accomplished, but somewhat in odds with the tone of the film.  A nod must be given to the score and soundtrack creators for attempting to create a small bank of original jingles and in-world diegetic music rather than going for stock tunes. 

Giving Nicolas Cage top billing is an interesting choice... he gives you a textbook Cage performance full of odd choices, intense but hilarious stares and overconfident physicality, all without uttering one word (to my recollection).  Beth Grant gives her down-home, over the top best as a literal plug-in character meant to explain the existence of Liv Hawthorne (who we will get to).  David Sheftell, Ric Reitz and Chris Warner all bring in some much needed levity in the form of outrageous caricatures of standard horror character tropes.  Unfortunately, the thing that really drags the film down is the inclusion of the teenagers in the story : Emily Tosta is given very little purpose as Liv Hawthorne, as her character could have literally been one of what is implied to be scores of kids sacrificed to Willy’s Wonderland, while her counterparts (Kai Kadlec, Caylee Cowan, Christian Del Grosso, Jonathan Mercedes and Terayle Hill) are, ironically, nothing but sacrificial lambs, both symbolically in terms of the narrative and literally in terms of being characters.  Jiri Staneck, Jessica Graves, Taylor Towery, B.J. Guyer, Chris Schmidt Jr., Billy Bussey, Christopher Bradley and Duke Jackson must all be given props for their animatronic performances.

Willy’s Wonderland may almost certainly go down as the most singularly unique and interesting viewing experience of the year, short of someone like Charlie Kaufman releasing a new film.  I don’t ever see myself returning to this film in a capacity outside of sharing it with friends or watching it “impaired” (if you catch my drift), but don’t let my bit of a beating that I gave the film fool you... this isn’t a bad movie... I’d say it’s an unnecessary guilty pleasure, if nothing else.