Heatblast and the Chocolate Factory is a 2009 musical fantasy film directed by James Bobbin. The screenplay by Robert Gordon, David Kidd and Nicholas Stoller and the story done by James Bobin. The film stars Dave Foley as Henry Hershey and Jadon Sand as Heatblast. The storyline concerns Eddie, who takes a tour he has won, led by Hershey, through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world.
| Directed by | James Bobbin |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Mary Parent
Walter Parkes Josh Schwartz |
| Screenplay by |
Robert Gordon David Kidd Nicholas Stoller |
| Story by | James Bobbin |
| Starring |
Jadon Sand Héctor Elizondo Malie Flanagan Alex Garfin Elias Garza |
| Narrated by | Morgan Freeman |
| Music by | Christophe Beck |
| Cinematography | Paul Ryan |
| Edited by | Catherine Apple |
| Production
companies |
Nickelodeon Movies Parkes/MacDonald Productions |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release dates | December 22, 2017 |
| Running time | 115 minutes |
| Country | *United States |
Plot[]
First off, as the beginning credits roll, we're given a virtual tour of chocolate bars being made. Before they are wrapped up by machines, a gloved hand puts five golden tickets on five candy bars. Next, they are packaged up and sent all over the world by trucks. As the trucks pass a street corner, the camera zooms in and we see Eddie Vogel (Jadon Sand) standing on the corner, watching the trucks go by. He crosses the street to his house, which is very shabby, old, and something no one would want to live in. A narrator informs us that Eddie is not smarter, nor faster, or stronger than any other child.
As he goes inside, we see that he lives with his mom (Catherine O'Hara), dad (William H. Macy) and four grandparents (who stay in bed all day.) They are all excited to see Eddie, and soon his father comes home. His mom asks his dad quietly if there is anything extra for the Potato soup, but there isn't. Eddie's dad works at a toothpaste factory screwing the tops onto toothpaste tubes and doesn't get paid very much. He brings home deformed toothpaste caps for Eddie who is making a replica of Henry Hershey's (Dave Foley) factory using these toothpaste caps. Of the pile that his dad sets on the table, he finds the perfect one to complete his model, a head and hat for Henry Hershey
This results in Grandpa Wallace (Héctor Elizondo) telling a story about how he used to work for Mr. Hershey 20 years ago. It used to be a small shop on a corner, and then how Henry Hershey built the biggest chocolate factory in the world. It was staffed with hundreds of workers, and unfortunately, the other competitors were sending in spies to steal his recipes. Soon after this, his candy competitors came out with the same ideas and products that had made Hershey famous. One day, Henry Hershey closed the factory, and all of the workers lost their jobs. One day, smoke started rising from the chimneys but nobody had/has seen workers going in or out of the factory. The story ends and everyone goes to bed. Eddie goes upstairs where he can see the factory through a hole in the roof.
That night, messengers are seen leaving the factory and they begin to put up signs on street corners. The next morning, it shows what they say. Essentially, Henry Hershey is going to give 5 children a chance to tour his factory, and at the end, one of the children will win a special prize. Eddie comes home with the news later that day. His grandparents are supportive/sympathetic for him, and one is kind of cynical about it. His Grandpa Bob (Hal Holbrook) talks about how the kids who will win are those who can afford a candy bar every day. He says that the first winner will be a kid who is incredibly fat.
Sure enough, the next day Manolo Ponce (Alexander Garfin), an extremely fat kid from San Juan, Puerto Rico, finds the first golden ticket. At the same time, he is eating a candy bar, and Eddie's family agrees that the kid is repulsive. The next day Alice Dale (Hadley Belle Miller) from Edinburgh, Scotland is given her golden ticket. Her father (Albert Brooks), who runs a nut plant, has his workers shell chocolate bars instead of nuts. It's obvious that she is a spoiled brat but still treats her father with respect because after receiving the ticket she thanks her father. The next to find the third ticket is Samantha Brooks (Kyla Rae Kowalewski), the gum chewer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. It introduces her by showing her kick the crap out of martial arts students. In her house, there are hundreds of trophies and medals that she's won. She and her mom (Leslie Mann) are very competitive. Next, the video game techie Drew Zealand (Elias Garza) from San Fransisco, California finds the fourth ticket. He's playing a violent video game as the press tries to interview him. He says he only had to buy one candy bar because he figured out where it was going to be through mathematics.
After this, Eddie is feeling bummed that the number of tickets left are decreasing. His parents give him his present (a chocolate bar) a day before his birthday, and they are all excited because it could have a golden ticket. He opens it up, but to his dismay, there is no golden ticket. Also, Eddie's dad loses his job at the toothpaste factory to a machine. Now money is really tight.
One day, Grandpa Wallace gives Eddie money for a chocolate bar, but it still doesn't have a golden ticket. The next day, Eddie is standing outside the gates of the factory when two men walk by, and he hears them discussing an Irish kid who had found the last golden ticket. Eddie, obviously dismayed, turns and heads home. As he turns a corner though, he spots $5 sticking out of the snow. He grabs it and runs into a store to buy a chocolate bar.
As he begins to open the bar, a woman standing next to him comments on how the Irish ticket was a fake. Charlie opens his chocolate bar and finds the last golden ticket. People in the store offer him money in order for him to trade the ticket, but the shopkeeper (Lenny Henry) tells them to leave him alone and tells him to run straight home with it.
He comes home and shows everybody the ticket. Grandpa Wallace is the most excited about going and he's allowed to if he feels alright. But Eddie isn't sure; some people in the shop offered him a lot of money just to convince him to trade the ticket for it but he knows that his family needs the money. His other grandpa talks him into going.
The next day, all the children and parents are outside the factory. At 8:00 am, the gates open and they all run in. Hershey's voice, on a loudspeaker, tells them to come forward. They come up to the steps of the factory, and the doors slide back, revealing red curtains. The curtains open revealing singing animatronic robots who sing about Henry Hershey. Everything is going fine until everything starts to malfunction, and the dolls melt, catch on fire. Pretty soon, Hershey, who is now standing next to Mr. Dale, claps his hands and declares that is was wonderful. Everyone then moves into the factory.
The party gets rid of coats and hats as they introduce themselves to Wonka, who is really pleased to meet them all. But has a problem with parents and family in terms of saying the words. Throughout the movie, flashbacks reveal his troubled past of his dad, Harrison Hershey (James Cromwell). As a dentist, his dad never let him have candy. He also had to wear braces. But once Henry got a taste, he wanted to become a chocolatier, against his father's wishes and he left home to follow his dream. Hershey later returned to find his father and home completely gone.
The first room that they visit is the chocolate room. Hershey talks about how everything in the room is eatable, and about his chocolate waterfall. As the group tries everything they notice little men called ''Chumba-Wumbas''. They all look alike (played by Jason Acuña, voices were done by Christophe Beck), and Hershey talks about how they came to work for him. He went to Wumba Land and wanted the Chumba-Wumbas to work for him. It worked well, as they loved cocoa beans (the stuff that chocolate is made from), they could do the work, being paid in cocoa beans, Hershey's secrets would be kept and Hershey's chocolate would be made.
Meanwhile, Manolo who is slurping chocolate from the chocolate river falls in where he is sucked up by a pipe which goes to the fudge processing center. The Chumba-Wumbas sing a song about how greedy he is and that he eats too much. And thus, Mrs. Ponce (Malie Flanagan) is taken to by a Chumba Wumba to rescue him from being made into Walnut Flavoured Chocolate Chip Fudge. A boat comes along and the rest of the party gets in. Henry dips a ladle into the river and pulls chocolate up, giving it to Eddie and Grandpa Wallace because they look so skinny. As they travel down the river, they pass various chambers- like Vanilla Cream, Spiced Cream, and even Cool Cream. They stop at the inventing room.
In the inventing room, Henry shows them the everlasting gobstoppers and Afro-Wig Toffee (which still needs some work). Hershey shows everyone his machine that makes the Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner gum. Samantha eats it, despite warnings from Grandpa Wallace and Henry, she chews the gum and when she gets to the dessert, she starts turning orange. She soon fills up with juice and is swelled up into an orange. Then the Chumba-Wumbas sing a song about how competitive she is and that chewing gum is bad for us to do. Henry has the Chumba-Wumbas roll her on the boat in order to take her to the juicing room.
They move onto the Nut Room; Mr. Dale gives Hershey his card, who upon receiving it, throws it behind him. In the nut room, trained Chipmunks are opening walnuts. Good ones get passed on, bad ones are thrown down the garbage chute. Alice wants a trained chipmunk though Henry tells her she can't have one. Alice climbs through the bars and goes after a chipmunk. She is attacked by them and held down while one tests to see if she is a good or bad nut. She is a bad nut, obviously, and is dragged, by the chipmunks, over to the garbage chute where she falls in. Mr. Dale watching helplessly as Henry tries to find the key to get in. Mr. Dale goes in, amidst the song of the Chumba-Wumbas who sing about how rotten she is while they toss a few more rotten things in. Mr. Dale, as he peers into the chute, is knocked in by a chipmunk.
Henry decides to continue on with the tour by using the Great Glass Elevator. Hershey presses a button and they go to a bunch of different places. Drew disses chocolate (which leads a flashback) but Eddie gives a sentimental line about candy. Drew decides to choose a room and chooses the Television Room. When they arrive, Henry shows how he is transporting Chocolate bars through waves,. This leads to Drew asking about transporting people, and indeed, transports himself. He shows up about 5 inches tall on the screen. Even the Chumba-Wumbas sing about how much Drew watches TV and doesn't mean he knows everything and how the T.V is not always right and how he watches too much of it.
As the Chumba-Wumbas take Drew and his dad (Nick Offerman) away to the Back to Normal Size room, Eddie, Grandpa Wallace, and Henry head back to the Great Glass Elevator. Henry turns to see who's left and is happy to find the Eddie is the only one left. They get into the elevator and Hershey pushes a button called "Up and Out" and they do just that. As they fall back to earth, Henry pushes a button that brings down engines/rocket boosters so they don't hit the ground. The other kids meanwhile are leaving the factory. Manolo is still covered in chocolate, Samantha is now really flexible but is still blue, Alice and Mr. Dale are covered in garbage, and Drew is back to his normal size.
When Henry takes Eddie and Grandpa Wallace back to their home, they crash through the roof. Hershey tours their home, casually informing them that Eddie just won the factory. The idea came to him the day he found a gray hair on his head during a hair cut. The only thing though is that Eddie would never get to see his family again. Eddie, who loves his family more than anything, refuses to go- to an amazed Hershey, who leaves to go back to his factory.
Things begin to pick up for Eddie and his family. His father gets a new job as a mechanic for the machine that replaced him. He earns more money so they can fix their house and they have more to eat at night. At the same time, we see a troubled Henry talking to his psychologist (A Chumba-Wumba). His candy sales have slumped a little, and he realizes that he feels terrible, and thus he is making terrible candy.
Later Eddie is shining a man's shoes, and the man is talking about Hershey and his chocolate. The man's face is hidden by his newspaper, but the voice is clearly Henry's. He asks Eddie about Hershey, who replies that he thought he was great, but that he really wasn't. Henry snaps back, revealing that it is him as gets rid of the paper. They talk and Eddie convinces him to go see his father. They get into the Great Glass Elevator and fly to the house.
It is the same as how he remembers it- with a sign and all. Its the only house standing in the middle of nowhere it seems. Henry's father, Harrison Hershey opens the door, asking if they have an appointment. Although they don't, Eddie says that Henry is just overdue. As his father (who doesn't recognize him at first) examines his teeth, Eddie looks at a bunch of newspaper clippings framed on the wall, and a scrapbook of news clippings. They are all about Henry and his Chocolate Factory. Harrison can find no bad things about the teeth- and comments that he has never seen such perfect teeth ever since and soon he and Henry recognize each other and share a tearful hug.
Later at night, The family is getting ready for dinner. Eddie, Henry and Harrison come in, apologizing about their lateness. They are discussing candy Rabbits, and Mrs. Vogel chides them about discussing business at dinner. They begin to eat as the camera pulls away, and the narrator's voice talks about how lucky Eddie really is and how he only accepted the factory on one condition.
We see that the house is no longer outside in the city but in the Chocolate Room. There are huge cauldrons above the house that are swinging, causing white particles onto the house and the rest of the room. And the last scene shows that the narration was from a Chumba-Wumba who lasts says " And one thing was absolutely certain - life had never been sweeter", ending the film.