Warning - the following may contain movie spoilers.
We went to see the new version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” the other weekend and since we recently read the book to my 6 year old (and re-watched the original movie version starring Gene Wilder), I thought I might weigh-in on the new movie. Here it is—not very good.
The book by Roald Dahl is a classic and worth a read. The New Yorker magazine just had a great article on Dahl and why some adults don’t like him but most kids do (for the record, this big kid likes his writing).
The new movie has some memorable moments. Our favorite was the great nut room scene. I was not aware that Burton had trained real squirrels to perform the nut cracking and sorting—I thought I was watching CG animation while in the theater. Johnny Depp’s interpretation of Wonka was too weirded-out for me. The book’s characterization of him makes it clear he’s odd but not demented. Depp saying things like “Let’s boogie!” and “Keep on Truckin’!” seemed too cute. Plus the movie added a whole back-story about his father being a strict dentist complete with flashbacks of tortured childhood moments without candy—all this after I read in an Entertainment Weekly magazine that Burton wanted to capture the book faithfully.
As for the original movie? While I liked Wilder’s version of Wonka better, it still wasn’t as great as some fans make it out to be. We thought the actresses who played Violet and Veruca were better here. The older movie also took liberties with the story—geese with golden chocolate eggs instead of squirrels, plus an addition of a final loyalty test regarding a candy secret.
As in most cases of books to movies—the book is better here—again.
For more reviews of the movie (and other things) try Metacritic.
August 10th, 2005 at 2:35 pm
I remember my tongue drying out at a couple of points throughout the movie. Mainly because my jaw was hanging wide open. Johnny Depp is a friggin’ fruit cake I remember saying to my wife. I was made pretty uncomfortable by this over-acheivement of weirditude. It was almost as if, the director left the set everyday before rolling the camera, leaving whatever up to whoever.
It wasn’t until I was walking out that I realized it was a kid’s movie. And as big-budget, candy-sales-boosting-blockbusters go, it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t like it though.
Visually, I was quite pleased, although I’d rank it at the bottom of Burton’s works. But the river of chocolate actually looked like chocolate..
August 10th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
I had resolved not to see this, but the steady stream of positive reviews was starting to sway my steely resolve. After reading this though, I think that my original instinct to stay away was correct.
August 10th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
Oh - I’d say it’s worth a DVD rental when it comes out. There are some good visuals to see and I tell you the squirrel scene is the best!
August 15th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
I enjoyed it, though I wish they hadn’t tagged on the father-son relationship, and the Oompa-Loompa songs were rubbish - that whole big-band thing just seemed completely out of place.
August 15th, 2005 at 10:58 pm
I agree Paul - the musical numbers were a waste. I also thought that the Oompa-Loompa dance moves were also all too similar from song to song.
August 27th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
I completely disagree; I think the songs were the film’s saving grace.
September 4th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
i thought it was fabulous, but then i never much liked the first one. ‘corpse bride’ will probably be even better.
the song lyrics were taken from the book, no? I’ve never read it.
September 4th, 2005 at 5:29 pm
The lyrics? Not sure about how true to the book they were in either movie. The book does have songs in it but I’d bet both movies wrote their own.
September 4th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
–For the song’s lyrics, Elfman went directly to the book. “I wanted to stay as true to Roald Dahl’s words as possible. In the book, they were written more like extended chants than songs, but his lyrics already had a wonderful rhythm to them. In the end, I had to do a lot of editing, but I think I was 95% true to the book, with just a bit of tweaking here and there.”–
April 12th, 2008 at 8:07 am
I thought the movie was delightful! My friend’s and I had a great laugh over this movie! We all remember the lyric’s from the movie, and still sing along to them! I think Tim Burton’s movie’s are the best! I can’t wait for what he put’s out next!