Natisse said:

oh i promise

lollyp0p said:

I loved the movie, but the wrap-up back story of Wonka himself was bit forced, and the ending didn't have the emotional whallop of the first movie version. Other than that, it's briliant and very faithful to the book.

we had fun ... fun movie and depp is just perfect for that part

my 9 yr old son wants to go see it for his birthday party this Saturday...opinions?? he is a pretty mature 9 yr old...loves the 'Lord of the Rings' movies etc...

I saw it in Imax on Friday! I thought that Depp sucked as wonka but I really enjoyed it!


Here, I agree with Ebert, I almost always agree with the fat man anyhow.


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

3 stars


BY ROGER EBERT / July 15, 2005


Now this is strange. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" succeeds in spite of Johnny Depp's performance, which should have been the high point of the movie. Depp, an actor of considerable gifts, has never been afraid to take a chance, but this time he takes the wrong one. His Willy Wonka is an enigma in an otherwise mostly delightful movie from Tim Burton, where the visual invention is a wonderment.

The movie is correctly titled. Unlike "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971), which depends on Gene Wilder's twinkling air of mystery, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is mostly about -- Charlie. Young Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) is so plucky and likable, and comes from such an eccentric and marvelous household, that the wonders inside the chocolate factory are no more amusing than everyday life at the Bucket residence.

The Buckets live in a house that leans crazily in all directions, and seems to have been designed by Dr. Caligari along the lines of his cabinet. The family is very poor. Charlie sleeps in a garret that is open to the weather, and his four grandparents all sleep (and live, apparently) in the same bed, two at one end, two at the other. His mother (Helena Bonham Carter) maintains the serenity of the home, while his father (Noah Taylor) seeks employment. Grandpa Joe (David Kelly) remembers the happy decades when he and everyone else in the neighborhood worked in the chocolate factory.

Alas, 15 years before the story begins, Willy Wonka dismissed his employees and locked his factory gates. Yet the world still enjoys Wonka products; how does Willy produce them? One day, astonishingly, Wonka announces a contest: For the five lucky children who find golden tickets in their Wonka Bars, the long-locked factory gates will open, and Willy will personally escort them through the factory. A special surprise is promised for one of them. Of course Charlie wins one of the tickets, not without suspense.

This stretch of the film has a charm not unlike "Babe" or the undervalued "Babe: Pig in the City." A metropolis is remade to the requirements of fantasy. Tim Burton is cheerfully inventive in imagining the city and the factory, and the film's production design, by Alex McDowell, is a wonder. David Kelly, as Grandpa Joe, is a lovable geezer who agrees to accompany Charlie to the factory; you may remember him racing off naked on a motorcycle in "Waking Ned Devine" (1998). And young Freddie Highmore, who was so good opposite Depp in "Finding Neverland," is hopeful and brave and always convincing as Charlie.

The problem is that this time, he finds Neverland. Johnny Depp may deny that he had Michael Jackson in mind when he created the look and feel of Willy Wonka, but moviegoers trust their eyes, and when they see Willy opening the doors of the factory to welcome the five little winners, they will be relieved that the kids brought along adult guardians. Depp's Wonka -- his dandy's clothes, his unnaturally pale face, his makeup and lipstick, his hat, his manner -- reminds me inescapably of Jackson (and, oddly, in a certain use of the teeth, chin and bobbed hairstyle, of Carol Burnett).

The problem is not simply that Willy Wonka looks like Michael Jackson; it's that in an creepy way we're not sure of his motives. The story of Willy and his factory has had disturbing undertones ever since it first appeared in Roald Dahl's 1964 book (also named after Charlie, not Willy). Nasty and frightening things happen to the children inside the factory in the book and both movies; perhaps Willy is using the tour to punish the behavior of little brats, while rewarding the good, poor and decent Charlie. (How does it happen that each of the other four winners illustrates a naughty childhood trait? Just Willy's good luck, I guess.)

We see the wondrous workings of the factory in the opening titles, a CGI assembly-line sequence that swoops like a roller-coaster. When the five kids and their adult guardians finally get inside, their first sight is a marvel of imagination: A sugary landscape of chocolate rivers, gumdrop trees and (no doubt) rock candy mountains. Behind his locked doors, Willy has created this fantastical playground for -- himself, apparently. As the tour continues, we learn the secret of his work force: He uses Oompa Loompas, earnest and dedicated workers all looking exactly the same and all played, through a digital miracle, by the vaguely ominous Deep Roy. We're reminded of Santa's identical helpers in "The Polar Express."

It is essential to the story that the bad children be punished. Their sins are various; Veruca Salt (Julia Winter) is a spoiled brat; Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb) is a competitive perfectionist; Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry) approaches the world with the skills and tastes he has learned through video games, and Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz) likes to make a little pig out of himself.

All of these children meet fates appropriate to their misdemeanors. I might be tempted to wonder if smaller children will find the movie too scary, but I know from long experience with the first film that kids for some reason instinctively know this is a cautionary tale, and that even when a character is suctioned up by a chocolate conduit, all is not lost.

Charlie and his grandfather join wide-eyed in the tour, and there are subplots, especially involving Violet Beauregarde, before the happy ending. What is especially delightful are the musical numbers involving the Oompa Loompas, who seem to have spent a lot of time studying Hollywood musicals. The kids, their adventures and the song and dance numbers are so entertaining that Depp's strange Willy Wonka is not fatal to the movie, although it's at right angles to it.

What was he thinking of? In "Pirates of the Caribbean" Depp was famously channeling Keith Richards, which may have primed us to look for possible inspirations for this performance. But leaving "Pirates" aside, can anyone look at Willy Wonka and not think of Michael Jackson? Consider the reclusive lifestyle, the fetishes of wardrobe and accessories, the elaborate playground built by an adult for the child inside. What's going on here? Bad luck that the movie comes out just as the Jackson trial has finally struggled to a conclusion.

I LOVED it!!

Partway through the beginning I realized just how much I was already sucked in as when watching the first movie, I always waited anxiously for them to get to the Factory already. Here, I was so sucked into the story I wasn't even sure I was quite ready for them to go in when they did.

SPOILERS

I adored the puppets on fire! Tim Burton's vision and the aesthetic of his movies was toned down just a bit here but I loved it anyway. The big peppermint bon-bon boat, the 'taste accountant' ( ) all the little details made up for one heck of a good movie. The oompa loompas were fun. Everything. Depp was fabulously mysterious and you weren't quite sure of his motives. If anything I was expecting it to be just a teensy bit more sinister, and I was maybe a little disappointed that it wasn't.

I didn't like this very much. I usually like Tim Burton's films, because he has an appreciation for the odd and the beauty that can sometimes be found where others may not see it. For me, the film suffered because he tried too hard to make Wonka a weird character. The same can be said of Depp's performance. I didn't like his take on Wonka. Too strained. Visually, it's pretty stunning, but it carried little emotional weight with me. I loved the book as a kid, because I got involved with the characters, and I felt the exact same way about the Gene Wilder version. Not the case this go around. My eyes were pleased, but the rest of me was left kinda...eh.

Hmm...I may just have to go see this one.

CarrieMpls said:

HAHA I do that all the time for the first film

I still don't understand all of the grandparents sharing the same bed...

Natsume said:

That's just not something I'd like to dwell on.

I liked it for the most part. More laughs in the first half, than the second. Glad it had something at the end that gave it more of it's own originality. Johnny Depp personifying MJ, was my first thought and it was worth a laugh or two in my book. Only thing that didn't take for me were the Oompa loompas, I just didn't connect with them, maybe because I knew too much beforehand.

Interesting that somebody else had that thought about Michael Jackson! The folks I saw it with had that same impression, as did I. I thought it was totally brilliant, personally.

Saw it. Loved it. It tramples all over the shitty original with it's creepy Gene Wilder Wonka. I've never liked the old movie, even when I was little. Wonka was scary (in a very bad way) and Charlie needed to be slapped, he was so earnest.

I quite liked Depp's take on Wonka. I noticed that MJ look right away too. Interesting that now that the movie's out Depp's denying that his portrayal has anything to do with Michael, when I could've sworn months ago he'd done a few interviews confirming that Michael was the inspiration for his Wonka.

This new movie does have it's imperfections (the forced backstroy being one of them, I agree) but overall it was fantastic. I think Roald Dahl would have been pleased.

meow85 said:

Thank you!
I've always thought that the Gene Wilder portrayal was way way too "Dr. Giggles", and that Prince was at least bi-sexual!

AsianBoi777 said:

meow85 said:

I aslo like the way he used special affects to make the oompa loompas especially small instead of using dwarfs. I've always been uneasy about the dwarfs in the movies.

tackam said:

Hello people, I am reviving this! I found this on imdb.com and found it to be interesting:

Depp Denies Basing Wonka on Jackson
Actor Johnny Depp has slammed reports he based his eccentric character Willy Wonka on troubled singer Michael Jackson - insisting the colorful role was based on a selection of children's TV show presenters. Depp says Jackson, who was acquitted of child molestation charges last month, would be the wrong person to base the Charlie And The Chocolate Factory character on, because the Thriller star loves kids, while Wonka dislikes them. He says, "It never entered my mind, Michael Jackson loves children but Willy Wonka doesn't." The true inspirations were TV hosts Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers and Uncle Al, who mesmerized Depp as a child. He adds, "There were memories I have as a little kid watching children's shows and children show hosts. I distinctly remember thinking their speech pattern was strange."

Regardless if he deliberately based it on MJ or not, the fact that everyone is coming up with this reading is kind of eerie.

SAW IT AT IMAX THEATRE - BIGGER JOHNNY DEPP!

Although I LOVE the style of the movie and Johnny Depp, I thought the original (w/Gene Wilder) had more heart.

.....And have you ever seen a family poorer than Charlie's? I guess love does conquers all!

HamsterHuey said:

MYTH
you need to get out more often
we have 15 local libraries
and they are ALWAYS busy
lots of people do read
and read they do
A LOT

Subliminal said:

the Gene Wilder version is very quotable
it has A LOT more word play
which makes it so much more fun!!

tim burton's version lacks good direction
willy and the other kids don't play off of each other as much
and they show very little expression
mike teavee does NOTHING until his part comes up
he has the dullest look on his face when bad things are happening
he should be laughing at the blueberry girl or saying "die, die, die!"
in the original, mike is fascinated with what's happening
as are the other kids, according to their character type
when veruca and her mother have their "eyes on the prize"
it's not very clear exactly why they say what they say
or do what they do -- after veruca's mom makes a move on wonka
she should've repeated to her daughter, "eyes on the prize, dear"
augustus looks computer animated most of the time which detracts
willy wonka has very little dialogue
but what i loved were the oompa songs by danny elfman
and the squirrels!
plus, very cool they stuck to the book during the most part

Snap said:

The original is better ,Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka i like Depp though.

me and my kids loved it. i liked the end especially.

amorbella said:

I'm too freakin' excited about this one!

I loved it! I can't compare the original version with this one. They are like 2 completely different movies. This one was more true to the book from what I can remember. The imagery was beautiful! I did miss the songs from the earlier movie and the different oompa loompa characters. The one oompa loompa frightened me at times. I cannot wait to see Corpse Bride though!!!