Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I needed to go into this movie and tell myself that this movie is NOT Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Willy Wonka is a beautiful movie. This one had its own merits. There were parts of Charlie that I didn’t enjoy half as much as I did Willy, like when Grandpa Joe gets up and starts to dance or the oompa-loompa songs, but like I said, it was not a remake. This film was based on the book, and there were some great parts.

Johnny Depp was great. He treated the children with such contempt it became almost comical. His thing with Mike Teevee “MUMBLING!!!” made me laugh more than once. I have been in Wonka’s shoes more than once- trying to be nice to a bunch of spoiled little brats. (Granted, I am not the biggest fan of bratty kids. I believe that kids are young people who are being shaped by their parents. And as the oompa loompas say in Willy Wonka, if the kid is a brat, it’s not the kid who is at fault.)

The film itself SCREAMED Tim Burton. It had that same dark feel of Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. ( btw, Nightmare is one of my favorites, and we saw a trailer before the feature for a movie called “Corpse Bride” by the same stop-animation team, which I am REALLY looking forward to!!!!)

I have never read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I have read Dahl stories before (Lamb to the Slaughter, James and the Giant Peach) and I do believe that Tim Burton and Dahl are a good match- almost as good as Dahl and Hitchcock. Burton did a good job adapting what I imagine the book consists of.