You know that trope where a character has to spend a night in a creepy old mansion and if they’re still alive the next morning, they inherit or win something? Willy’s Wonderland is basically that, except with Nicolas Cage, a Chuck E. Cheese-style restaurant filled with evil animatronic robots, and a cool-ass car. House on Haunted Hill could never.
Willy’s Wonderland stars Cage as an energy drink-chugging janitor (I’m already in) whose car gets a flat tire in a nowhere town. “Unable to pay the repair shop to fix his Jeep, he agrees to work off his debt by spending the night cleaning Willy’s Wonderland, an abandoned theme park full of animatronic characters that were once a beacon of fun for children to play with,” according to the official plot description. “But Willy’s Wonderland carries a dark secret that The Janitor is about to discover.” If you guessed “smashing a robot ostrich with a broken mop,” congratulations, you are correct.
“He’s been lured into a deadly trap, or rather, a living nightmare, as the Wonderland’s animatronic characters come to life to destroy him. The Janitor is forced to fight his way from one monster to another, trying to survive until morning.”
I can’t believe it took this long for Nicolas Cage to play a janitor who has to battle murderous robots in a movie described as “Pale Rider vs. Killer Klowns from Outer Space.” It seems like something he should have done years ago.
Willy’s Wonderland, which also stars Emily Tosta, Beth Grant, Ric Reitz, and Chris Warner, hits digital and On Demand on February 12.
