I played Wonka at MGC and was underwhelmed. I think it shoots well, but the flippers were weak and took some of the fun out of it.
I'm mostly disappointed with the theme integration.
I mean, why am I shooting the gobstopper three times to start gobstopper multiball? I guess, because it's a pinball machine with a gobstopper in it. But just because the movie had Gobstoppers, and you stick a plastic gobstopper into the game, does not make for good theme integration.
They could have developed the exact same mechanism, but put a model of the boat on top instead of the gobstopper. Then, when you are shooting balls into it, it represents the kids boarding the boat. When they are all boarded, the boat spins, multiball starts, and you play the boat scene on the screen along with the creepy dialog. That scene goes along with a spinning boat very well.
Well these are just my thoughts and I know there is much more that goes into this stuff, so my opinion is definitely not well informed or worth much. And honestly if I didn't love the theme so much, I'd actually be more likely to buy this game.