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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Things I'm a fan of: Johnny Depp. Tim Burton. Roald Dahl. I can't lose then, surely? Well, curiously I can. Although Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a pretty good couple of hours, it manages to end up as less than the sum of its parts.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is, I suppose, as good as I could have expected. I imagine it will appeal more to the new generation of kids than to fans of the original book or the Gene Wilder movie, partly because of Danny Elfman's new get-out-of-my-head Willy Wonka theme song. It has enough of Tim Burton's story-telling skill and Johnny Depp's screen charisma to keep everyone entertained, but personally I'd take Madagascar every time. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: To enjoy this film you should: forgive the crap ending.
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Your commentsThe comments printed here are not necessarily the views of Forwardcharm!
I must confess to not being a big fan of Roald Dahl so I was not expecting a lot from the 2nd cinema romp of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'd not read the book or seen the first outing with Gene Wilder, all I knew was that Charlie found a gold ticket and got a tour of some factory.
tim burton is a great director. he can turn an okay movie into a brilliant movie! i really enjoyed this film! it has a great story line and you learn a lot about willy wonka.
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Johnny Depp is one of my favourite actors - he can turn any role into a treat to watch. With his Willy Wonka, it takes
half an hour to get used to him - he plays him as a cross between Michael Jackson and Howard Hughes, but likeable.
On the surface he's playful and twee, but lurking underneath is a manipulative and mischievous malevolence directed
at those who take the wee-wee. By the second half the viewer has either bought into the performance or gone to sleep,
and his opinion at this stage is unlikely to change as we continue. Freddie Highmore plays the eponymous Charlie
Bucket and doesn't manage to capture the same sparkle that he showed in 
The writer John August has kept the critical parts of the book in place, however he's taken one or two inadvisable
liberties. Charlie isn't bribed by the rival chocolatiers, which seems a bit of a drop-off and required a simplification
of the tour's ending, and there is an awful
subplot fabricated to give Christopher Lee a part as Wonka Senior. It could be that I'm too familiar with the original,
but this seemed to stick out like a sore thumb and seriously destroyed the ending. There was nothing wrong with the
book's ending, it was consistent with the feel of the story and had the correct pace for the conclusion. This extra
segment grafted in from Hollywood's rent-a-plot department played like a dog hair in a trifle and dispelled much
of the magic so carefully created in the main course. Naughty movie men! Don't do it again!
