Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Johnny Depp
Freddie Highmore
Helena Bonham Carter
David Kelly
Noah Taylor
Directed by: Tim Burton

Plot: Willy Wonka, the world famous chocolateer and recluse, announces that he is putting five golden tickets into his chocolate bars and that whoever finds these tickets will get a tour of his chocolate factory. Once inside, the five lucky children get a glimpse of Willy Wonka’s enchanted world.

Review: First off, I don’t think you can really put together a review of this film without comparing it to the original, and while on the whole I think it is a better movie, it does fall flat in a few areas.

This retelling of the Roald Dahl’s novel is first much truer to the original novel. It actually follows the book very closely, adding pieces that I thought were some of the best parts of the book. Most notably; the incident in the nut room, the origin of the oompa loompas, and where the original movie used original songs to tell the stories of each of the children, this remake actually chose to use pieces of the original poetry from the book. Secondly, Tim Burton’s vision of the novel is much more visually appealing and seems to add an extra dimension to not only Willy Wonka’s factory but to the entire movie in general. On the other hand, this version actually went out of its way to mock what I think was some of the most endearing part of the original movie. Instead of childlike wonder, the children were all cynical little brats that seemed to take a certain amount of enjoyment in pointing out to the audience how ridiculous all of this really was. I was a little uncomfortable being told not to suspend my disbelief when of course that was on of the big reasons the first film was so fun. In some small way it seemed like they were telling me that Santa Claus was not real, when I just wanted to hold on to the myth a little longer.

The biggest problem in my opinion, and still not horrible enough to suggest this movie was worse than the original, was Johnny Depp. The Willy Wonka in this version was more of a social retard that seemed completely uncomfortable in his own skin and probably a bit of an idiot, in fact whenever he was uncomfortable with a situation he either groaned a little or blamed one of the kids for mumbling. Gene Wilder’s sarcastic humor that was just over the children’s (and parents) heads made for more amusing moments and was a nice counterbalance to the childlike wonder of the rest of the movie. In comparison, it makes Johnny Depp’s performance very one dimensional. But despite the problems I had with the movie (admittedly mostly sentimental), I would have to say this is a much prettier, sleeker, better imagined movie than the original, and while the original still has a special place in my heart this version is probably the better of the two.

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