Movie Review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Critical Critic: General Disdain | Published on: September 4, 2005 |
Filed under: Fantasy, Family
Directed By: Tim Burton
MPAA Rating: PG
Starring: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, AnnaSophia Robb
IMDB Link: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Movie Trailer:
There are few movies that I watch every time they are rerun on TBS. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is one of those movies. So you can understand my initial hesitation when I heard that it was remade and released as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a story about purity and the idea that good things will eventually go to the deserving. A basic feel-good movie. This movie carries on the feeling of its predecessor, only in a slightly more bizarre way. The movie is very dark and quirky. I almost felt as if Tim Burton (the director) used the Batman set for this movie. He must have had the music soundtrack of Batman laying around too because it is dark and ominous as well.
What livens Charlie and the Chocolate Factory up is the, once again brilliant, performance by Johnny Depp. Without a doubt this man is one the top performer of our times. He plays an eccentric, lonely and obviously off-kilter Willie Wonka to a tee. How strange of man Mr. Wonka truly is. He reminded me of Edward Scissorhands, only without the scissors.
The rest of the movie is relatively fun to watch. In one scene, they actually trained squirrels to open walnuts for the movie! The Oompa Loompas are always a welcome treat too, even if their songs aren’t as fun as in the original.
Personally, I would recommend one to see Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. It is clearly more light-hearted to watch. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory wasn’t made for the family to watch. Instead it was made for Tim Burton to do another exercise in creating strange, dark worlds inhabited by strange, dark people.
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About: General Disdain I love long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners and I'm a sucker for women named Helga. What can I say -- I live for the finer things in life! |
Nashtradomus posted a response on: September 13, 2005 | Reply
I took the extra step to watch the original before I went ahead and watched the remade version. Apparently I did have a lot of downtime to watch them both and some needed patience.
This delightfully creepy 2005 remake left me asking my wife “what the hell just happened?”. It’s a Burton and Depp collaboration at its absolute weirdest. Depp’s performance was surprisingly empty though, not throughly getting into the absolute depth of Willy Wonka, which is a just a lonely lonely man and his chocolate factory. Burton’s newly fresh interpretations of the 5 golden ticket winners are hilarious and the very specific characteristics and personalities set for each of them worked well with the new remake.
This is no sugarcoated musical. You’ll understand THAT with the opening credits, the 70s version opening with the makings of beautiful creamy chocolates bursted with absolute innocence, while the Burton’s CCF was with steel ridden machines and rectangle blocks of dark chocolates made with maddening precision and hard lines, with the orchestra raging with dark passion. But to compare these two movies would be comparing two absolutely random objects, like a notepad and rollerbades. it just doesn’t make any sense. The movies are so different from each other. Though i do still prefer the original version, it was a nice relief of not having every single character break into a 10 minutes song every scene, and the childrens characters were a little underdeveloped.
Burtons version probably scored higher on the laughs, the overall look, the development of characters, and a storyline that didn’t follow such a predictable road, but what it does lack that the original had, was honesty. If anything disappointed me, it was the fact that the newly created Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was so commercial, and though it delivered its goods, it delivered it with all talk and no soul. Yes, and the original oompa loompas were indisputably better than Burtons version. Indisputably better.
I rate this movie B.
Mr. Gold posted a response on: September 13, 2005 | Reply
Well said. Although, it was interesting to see a 180-degree twist on such an eclectic character, I prefer a more light-hearted and entertaining Willie Wonka.
It is clear Tim Burton has dark, convoluted, institutionalized vision of the world. I just happen to think it is better suited for movies like Batman, Sleepy Hollow and The Nightmare Before Christmas. . .
Nashtradomus posted a response on: September 14, 2005 | Reply
You actually agreed with me?! Thats fresh.
Mr. Gold posted a response on: September 14, 2005 | Reply
It pained me to do it. . .
Aspie182 posted a response on: August 11, 2007 | Reply
Ironic that your ratings icons are pieces of crap, because that is what this film did to the Gene Wilder adaptation: crapped on it from an almighty height. It is not a coincidence that Dahl was reluctant to let Hollywood near his writings again after that piece of saccharine garbage which still haunts my school-related nightmares hit the silver screen. Burton and Depp quite apparently “get” Roald Dahl a lot better than an overwhelming majority of people presuming to review this film apparently do.