Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Warner Brothers Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: July 15, 2005 (USA)
Director: Tim Burton
Rated PG-13

Review by Dan Hansen

If you've read some of my other reviews - remakes make me nauseous, but this one only made me queasy. Call me old school but the original was far more whimsical and entertaining. Based on the Roald Dahl's book titled "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," Director Tim Burton tries to retell the story of a young boy who wins a tour of the factory which is owned by the world renowned and elusive candy man, Willy Wonka. Like in the original, we see that Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp) is quite eccentric and weird. Tim Burton uses flashbacks quite a bit, which the screenwriter in me screams "Why?" If you're going to show how and why Willy is the way he is why not change the story line. I feel the flashback detract from the story and not enhance it.

We have all the characters that we had in the original but with twists on only on few and introduce two more. Johnny Depp's portrayal of Willy Wonka was strange, bizarre and with his makeup reminded me of Michael Jackson. The lovable Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) was great and I feel kept the story real. Grandpa Joe (David Kelly - "Waking Ned Devine") was a nice way to make Willy Wonka look like a human being with a problem, but believed he was still a great man. The coolest part of the whole movie was the Oompa Loompa, and I mean one Oompa Loompa, Deep Roy plays all of them and from what I heard they didn't use Computer Generate Imagery - cool stuff. What we didn't see in the original was his past and with that Willy's father Dr. Wilbur Wonka (Christopher Lee) a local dentist, who reminded Willy of how candy is bad for your teeth and the rebellious young child that doesn't listen to him. We also have the other four children from Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz), Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb), Veruca Salt (Julia Winter) and my favorite the TV geek Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry).

Despite the fact that this is a retelling of a great story with a lot of heart and I have to admit I liked. It's not one of those movies that I'd see 2 or 3 times in the theater but I'd probably add to my DVD collection. What I found amazing was mixed reactions, where adults are still die-hard Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) fans while the kids liked this version. I guess times have changed from back in the day movies were produced to entertain while today movies are geared to overload the senses a fact I noticed while I watched the Marx Brothers, "A Day at the Races" (1937) - Talk about old school, with my son and he even got a chuckle out of it.