A Movie Review

Well Kat, I’m taking you up on your suggestion so here is a review of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you haven’t read the book and/or don’t know the story I am giving away a few things in this review so be warned.

Well I didn’t see the first Charlie so I don’t have that to compare this one too so you should get a completely unbiased report here.

I think it was great that I read the book shortly before watching the movie. Everything was still pretty fresh in my mind from the book so any differences were pretty obvious right away. And there were some differences!

The Bucket family was perfect. The people looked almost exactly as I had pictured them, especially Charlie and his Grandpa Joe. Their house looked great too complete with a door that didn’t quite open right. They had Charlie sleeping upstairs though which was a slight difference than the book. All of the other children were reproduced quite well too. Augustus Gloop was likely my favorite. The very last thing he says in the movie was one of my favorite quotes. “But I taste so good Mama.” Mike Teavee was likely my least favorite. And the fact that he was a violent video game playing gun-slinging kid from Denver didn’t sit well with me. Littleton is practically a suburb of Denver, which I’m sure, is no coincidence for Burton.

The town where the Buckets lived and where the factory was located looked great. This whole movie was obviously Tim Burton, with lots of strange angles on buildings and very saturated color everywhere. It almost had a cartoon quality to it.

I love watching Johnny Depp. He cracks me up and creates really cool characters. His interpretation of Willy Wonka wasn’t quite what I would have suggested and seemed to stray a bit from Dahl’s description. Wonka sort of had a Michael Jackson quality to him in looks. The thin white face and skinny body that is. He also spoke kind of effeminately which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Sure Wonka is eccentric but eccentric doesn’t automatically tie in with effeminate does it? All that said I still enjoyed Depp’s version. After all it was Burton’s version of the story so he’s allowed to do what he wants.

There were also some story changes. Wonka kept having flashbacks to his childhood and the bad experiences he had with his overbearing dentist father who thought candy was evil. This changed the ending slightly too which I won’t give away. None of the changes took away from the story at all. I could totally see why Burton added what he did. The book ends great but doesn’t have the kind of ending a movie made in Hollywood would have which is what Burton gave it.

The Oompa Loompas were interesting. Burton used one guy’s face and made all of the Oompa Loompas look like him. It was kind of amusing but I don’t think it was worth all of the work they would have needed to do to do that. They didn’t really fit into my mental picture of what or who the Oompa Loompas were. Their songs were pretty interesting. Danny Elfman outdid himself. The songs that they sang after each child destroyed themselves were all quite involved. There was singing and dancing and lights. It was all very organized. There was a disco-ish song, a Queen-type song and a couple of other theme based songs. Elfman used Dahl’s lyrics but created new music for everything.

All in all it was an enjoyable movie, very true to the book. My favorite part was when they first walk into the factory. That looked exactly like I pictured it. If you are a big fan of the book go ahead and shell out the big bucks for the theatre otherwise it’ll be a great rental. Maybe even read the book first. Any library should have it and it’s a pretty quick read.

GL