Willy's Wonderland (2021)

2021 NR 88 Minutes

When his car breaks down, a quiet loner agrees to clean an abandoned family fun center in exchange for repairs. He soon finds himself waging war against possessed animatronic mascots while trapped...

Overall Rating

6 / 10

Verdict: Good

User Review

d_riptide

3 / 10

To anybody still waiting for that Five Nights At Freddy movie, “Willy’s Wonderland” will have to make due as a substitute for now......a rather lackluster, bareboned, semi-intriguing concept that loses the appeal of its gimmick all too quickly substitute. But at least it’s got Nicolas Cage. Ok, in all seriousness, I was actually excited to see this. A movie with a concept ripped straight out of FNAF and Chuck. E Cheese with another over the top performance from Nic Cage just screamed ‘so-bad-its-good’ to me and for the most part, it succeeded in executing its basic premise.

Fits neatly into Cage's recent body of work, actually: Nostalgia with a modern twist, over the top violence and a B-movie feel. Not saying it wasn’t fun to watch but the most surprising aspect was how uncomplicated it was; it really is totally straightforward. Obviously unconventional, yes, but still straightforward. I had hoped for a bit more from Cage and ultimately it felt like it was a movie to keep Cage fans ticking over until his next big film. Outside of him, the rest of the cast came off as average or bland or both, the animatronics came off more as annoying than terrifying, there was barely any original or fresh scares in this household, they try WAY too hard to add some lore to the story as if it finally decided to take itself seriously despite being cheesy as all hell, I’ve mentioned how much I hate the dumb stupid characters tropes in horror movies and honestly.....and it wore out its welcome really fast because the film couldn’t decide on a tone. This was one of those movies where on paper, presentation and execution, it should have been IMPOSSIBLE to screw up; how do you make a movie like this where animatronics in a kids birthday party parlor come to life and kill whoever roams around at night so damn repetitive and boring?

Believe me, it’s really difficult to bore me.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I still don’t get the whole FNAF appeal or if this was just Kevin Lewis’s style (and I don’t know anything about the guy). But the film is a patchwork mess and because of how the conflicting tones render the whole experience mundane, it’s not even the fun kind of mess. A damn shame.

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