Tim Burton was the right choice for a remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, that can’t be disputed. The choice of Depp as Wonka can be, as can most of the remaining cast.
The performances are mild and soft, not really demonstrating the unfettered greed, and competition that the 70s version demonstrated. Depp himself as Wonka is more a cream puff than a mad genius, something that Gene Wilder managed to hone to perfection. True, Dahl was unhappy with the work, and villified, but put against Burton’s remake I know which I prefer.
Starting promisingly, there’s more than whiff of familiarity in the opening sequence which echoes his earlier offering in Batman The Movie. Narration is done by Christopher Lee who also gets a part as Wonka’s father. There’s another layer added to the story, with Wonka’s diluted childhood, with a warning to stay away from sweets as his dentist father has demonstrated vigorously. Wonka has flashbacks, and frowns and smiles intently to demonstrate some semblance of madness, but it comes off looking like he’s being tickled rectally with a feather.
The songs and the oompa loompas are not the same as what we have come to know, more comparable to a night in soho’s seedy clubs than helper monkeys for Wonka. They span a range of costumes from red fetish outfits to blue spandex, all of which demonstrate Tim Burton’s hidden desires for midget sex, no doubt. Of course I am kidding.
What grates about the film is that it’s competently made, with some decent enough performances from a few, the vast majority fall below average. The key aspect that’s missing is twofold, the first of which being that the film is no fun whatsoever. We go from sequence to sequence, but it’s not fun, with no build up and none of the mad cap sequences that we saw in teh earlier remake.
It’s great that today’s remake is closer to the book in tone and style, but at the expense of dull celluloid. The second element is that the film is rather underwhelming and unspectacular. It’s not the knowing that’s disappointing, it’s the event unfolding. No one is really bad per se, just spoilt, but forgivable. No one deserves the punishments they get, or at least, don’t demonstrate a level of idiocy that warrants it. There’s no spitefulness, no angst, nothing that really makes any of the characters likeable or dispicable. It’s a very unspectacular effort.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory shows a lot of promise, but it’s executed with a broken hand which offers dull entertainment and no frills. Wonka’s factory is not mysterious or amazing, it doesn’t have that grab, that magic that you’re expecting. Non of the so-called special events or moments carry any weight, hanging in a scene like a lifeless special effect. This should have been so much better, instead it’s just average.
Verdict: Underwhelming remake of a children’s classic. The 70s version was far more fun