I have never watched this Chitty Chitty Bang Bang before today, and I honestly didn’t know what to expect. In terms of subject matter that appeals to me, a musical about a car would be pretty low on the list. Turns out, it’s not really a musical about a car, it’s more a musical about how children are stupid and deserve to live in a cave 200 feet below a castle.
…I really don’t know where to start with this one, guys. Several hours later and I’m still trying to process what I just watched.
Two Dickensian orphan looking children whose names I already don’t remember, are caught skipping school by an attractive, young white woman who almost runs them over with her car. When she returns them to their home, she finds their father, Caractacus Potts, a deadbeat dad who lets his children run around in front of vehicles and look like they are generally homeless. She politely suggests he should maybe give his children a bath, and he gets all “women can’t drive!” and shoos her off the property.
After making his children wash their hands (and nothing else), they tell him to buy a junker car they were playing with earlier because they think it’s magic. He can’t afford the car because he’s a dreamer who invents a bunch of shit that doesn’t work, and actually, in some cases, is physically harmful to people. But it’s OK, because he loves his kids, and love will put food in their bellies.
In order to get this car, he first decides to try to sell his inventions, and that goes about as poorly as one would expect from a man who thinks a quality flying machine involves strapping a firework to his back. He then moonlights as a dancer one night and makes enough money to purchase and fix up the car. They take the car on a joy ride and almost run Truly off the road, again. Instead of realizing this reckless family is going to get her killed, she decides to join them on a picnic at the beach, where the children tell her how desperate they need a mother, because their father is distracted and broke.
After everyone is done frolicking, they get in the car and Mr. Potts decides to tell a story about how Chitty is a flying car that a baron wants to steal for no reason. The baron lives in a city where children are forbidden because the baroness doesn’t like them, which seems fair to me. When the crew come to the city to save their kidnapped grandfather, and then the car that they carelessly abandoned, they run into a child catcher, who kidnaps the children by promising them sweets.
This is literally nightmare fuel; I don’t even know what I’m looking at.
Truly and Mr. Potts discover that all the children who were supposed to be in the city were hiding in a cave for 12 years. They storm the castle with a bunch of villagers, save Mr. Potts kids, and then drive the fuck away after causing the complete dissolution of the governmental system.
For several minutes I thought, is this actually happening? This has gone on for too long, this must be actually happening. Then after AN HOUR OF THIS, it is revealed that oh no, just kidding, it really was just a story that meant nothing and you will never get that time back.
When the fantasy ends and Mr. Potts drives everyone home from the beach, he gaslights Truly by telling her how utterly ridiculous it would be for them to get married, even though in his fantasy he imagined an entire sequence where she walks around her garden singing about how in love with him she is. She is understandably offended by this and storms off, and Mr. Potts is left trying to explain to his children they may never see Truly again because he’s an utter dickhead. But this tension doesn’t last long, because a minute later he finds out that her father, Mr. Scrumptious, the head of a candy company, is a friend of his father. Mr. Scrumptious decides to buy Mr. Potts whistle candy invention, because although it is not good enough for human consumption, dogs love it. Mr. Potts then drives immediately over to Truly’s, almost killing her with his car, again, and proposes to her in a swamp. She accepts because in the 3 interactions she’s had with him, she thinks this is a good idea.
The songs are nothing to write home about. The only number I genuinely liked was “Toot Sweets”, where an entire factory of workers lose their shit over a candy with holes in it that they can blow into, only to have the entire place overrun by dogs because they are attracted to the whistle.
Dick Van Dyke will forever be doomed to kick his knees up, Step In Time.
Another gem was “Posh!”, which their grandfather sings from an outhouse that is being dangled from an airship over an ocean. I’m sorry, for as much as a curmudgeon I am, this shit was so fucking bizarre it was hilarious.
The title song was unbelievably obnoxious to me. It did not help that every time the children sang anything, they looked liked they were in physical pain. And it feels like it never ends – it goes on and on and is reprised and jesus christ by the end I was like enoughhhhh.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is 2 hours and 40 minutes long, and it feels that long. It doesn’t know who its target audience is. An hour and 40 minutes of it are targeted mainly toward adults, and the other hour is mainly targeted toward children. If it were two different movies maybe I would have found it more enjoyable, but smashed together it just feels disjointed with no clear indication what the plot is and where the movie is taking us. I would definitely rate this lower than Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
Next is God Help the Girl, if I can find someplace to stream it.