August 12, 2005
mini-review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
I was disappointed. I'd been waiting for this film for a few months now, thinking the team of Roald Dahl, Tim Burton, and Johnny Depp would be the perfect combination. Alas, it was not so, and like many movie critics I have to put most of the blame on Johnny Depp. His too-weird and affectless Willie Wonka really sucked the air out of the film. I was hoping for something more like a combination of his feckless pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean and his warm and wonderful (yet still complicated) J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland. Instead he played it more like a clone from Star Wars.
I suppose we can't blame Depp completely. First of all he was up against Gene Wilder's immortal performance in the original film. Secondly, he was no doubt following a script, which depicted Willie Wonka as an out-of-it, alienated genius with "issues." Thirdly, he was being directed by Tim Burton in a, I must say, sub-par effort.
I liked some of the elements in the new backstory--namely Willie's father, played by Saruman...I mean, Christopher Lee, as a menacing, martinet of a dentist (and I loved it when he said "I won't be here when you return" and then when Charlie returns he finds the row house ripped of the row!). But too much of the film was spent on setting up, and then resolving, Willie's oedipal issues.
I have mixed feelings about the removal of the songs that appeared in the original. When I was kid I used to fidget during that syrupy song where Mrs. Bucket serenades Charlie (who, played by Freddie Highmore, looks a lot like yours truly at that age). On the other hand, Jack Albertson's song and dance ("You've got a golden ticket") in the original is missed here. It's just a throw-away moment in the current film.
RE: the acting: the kids are OK, but the parents aren't awful enough. Deep Roy steals the show as (ALL the) Oompa-Loompas, and all those Oompa-Loompa numbers (loved the first Bollywoodized song) are great. I also enjoyed the doll's song at the first scene in the factory--Tim Burton doing what he does best. Too bad there weren't more scenes like it in this version.
The web page for the film, however, is quite literally fun-and-games, especially the flash version. I recommend it. I especially enjoyed catching Oompa-Loompas with Veruca Salt. The game with Mike Teevee is kind of lame, though: it would make more sense, for his character in the current film, if it was a Wonka-vized version of Grand Theft Auto (and why did the film have to keep the chocolate by TV bit, when it could have done something interesting with games?). Anyhoo, here's the URL for the website:
http://chocolatefactorymovie.warnerbros.com/