Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 2005
While I respect Burton’s vision, style, and the overall weirdness, his movies seem to always fall short of bringing it all together. It is hard not to draw comparisons with the earlier version of the movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. This is a better quality movie in terms of the sets and actors. Oscar-winner Helena Bonham Carter shows up with just a bit part as Charlie’s mother. The set-up outside the factory is definitely better than in the original. The cast of children are actually pretty decent. Veruca Salt, the spoiled brat, is played perfectly and with some subtlety while the others are over the top as the over-achiever, glutton, and video game addict. Charlie is a great improvement and the grandfather, with a reduced role, is also good.
Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka is okay. Gene Wilder did such a good job that it’s kind of hard to come up with something different but just as successful. Depp’s twisted Mr. Rogers/Michael Jackson works in some good ways, but he’s so weird that it is hard to like him. Wilder was much easier to like while still being eccentric and, at times, intimidating.
There are some very funny moments and a few surprises. However, much of this is just repeated from the original movie. Augustus falling in the river and being sucked up a tube is exactly like in the original. There are also differences: The scene where Charlie and his grandfather sneak some soda pop and wind up floating up a chamber is scratched. That’s good because it never seemed fair that Charlie would break the rules like the others and still get the prize. Veruca’s end is a little different, too, which makes me wish they could have done something a little different with each of them. I guess they wanted to stay true to the original story, but it also makes this movie kind of superfluous since the original seems to have followed pretty well also.
There are four songs performed by the oompa loompas as each of the kids meets his end. They are different genres: folk, rock, etc. but none of the songs is particularly memorable (as opposed to just the one oompa loompa song from the original that was quite memorable). Those production numbers, as one character observes, seem very rehearsed. But they aren’t that inspired. While it is a great technical feat to have one Indian midget play all of the oompa loompas, he just didn’t do that much for me.
I’ll give it a B.
Owned on: DVD, Digital