A roller-coaster ride — literally and metaphorically

Wonder Park

I did not sit down to watch Wonder Park with high hopes. As portrayed on the poster, the characters look like knockoff versions of animated critters from Space Chimps, Sing, Open Season, Inside Out and a Charmin commercial. The director was fired mid-shoot over claims of inappropriate conduct, and replaced by a trio of producers. And why was the movie first named Amusement Park and then changed to Wonder Park when the park in question is called Wonderland?

Thankfully, you won’ t have time to ponder such nagging concerns once the movie gets into gear, because it’s a roller-coaster ride, literally and metaphorically. If you or your offspring has ever watched both Willy Wonkas (197 1 and 2005) back to back while eating Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries doused in espresso — and please note that I’m not advocating this, at least not without a “trip sitter” — you may have a sense of the weirdness in store.

The opening is mild enough. Little June (Brianna Denski) has an active imagination that she channels into a make-believe amusement park with her mom, voiced by Jennifer Garner. (Fun fact: Nickelodeon didn’ t have to pay Garner, because every seventh “mom” role she does is free!)

But when Mom gets sick and has to go away for treatment — a remarkably emotional scene for a kids’ movie — June decides to put away her Wonderland models and plans, going so far as to burn one big mural. Then (and this is when the sugar kicks in) she wanders into the woods and discovers that her invented funfair has turned into the real thing, populated with anthropomorphic animals — Mila Kunis as a warthog; John Oliver typecast as a porcupine; etc. But it’s all gone to seed and is being overrun by zombie chimpanzees. And it’s up to June to save it.

Now, all this can be enjoyed by the little ones as a trippy adventure story featuring the best abandoned amusement park since the heyday of Scooby-doo, Where Are You! But it also functions — and I’m not even joking here — as a fascinating mediation on the question of how God created evil, if we think of June as creator with a capital C. There’s even a prophet figure in the form of a chimp named Peanut (Norbert Leo Butz), who built the park based on messages that came into his head — from June.

It ’s the rare animated movie that allows for this kind of deconstruction while still remaining a fun story at heart. Kudos to co-writers Josh Appelbaum, André Nemac and Robert Gordon, whose previous credits include such wildly disparate stories as Galaxy Quest, TV’S Alias and Life on Mars, and a planned Beverly Hills Cop sequel. May their cereal never get soggy.∫∫∫1/2

Wonder Park supplies the wacky and weird in the same vein the both Willy Wonka films did, writes the Post’s Chris Knight.