Charlie And The Chocolate Factory [17] -2005-

This movie is taken from the story written by Roald Dahl, one of my favorite authors. Roald first imagined this during his prep school days. All the boys in his school received Cadbury chocolates in plain grey boxes to evaluate. Each one of the boys took this task quite seriously and wrote paragraphs describing the flavours. Roald thought it would be fantastic to have a story revolving around a chocolate factory where all sorts of remarkable sweets were invented. The tale translated into movie form retaining the 4 nastly little children with 4 of the seven deadly sins:
Augustus Gloop - Gluttony
Mike Teevee - Sloth
Veruka Salt - Greed
Violet Beauregarde - Pride
Willy Wonka could be seen to represent Wrath and Lust, with Charlie representing Envy.

This expectation review is going to be tough. Immediately I am going to compare this movie to the 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. The 1971 Willy Wonka movie is one of my favorites of all time. It is one of the classics that gets mentioned in the same breath as Wizard of Oz. It is an outstanding Oscar Nominated musical. Gene Wilder took his manic performance over the top, climaxing with “You Get, NOTHING! You LOSE! Good DAY Sir!” to Charlie and Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson). Charlie takes a back seat, because Willy Wonka is the character with a personality. The orange Oompa Loompas themselves are cultural icons. Their “Oompa Loompa doopidy doo” song really does serve as a warning to you.

On the other hand…. Tim Burton, a great director with an eye for the dark side of things is behind the camera. Johnny Depp is in the lead role. Johnny distinguished himself as Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood in the eponymous movies. Johnny Depp appears to be playing Mr. Wonka much more as a character in a hallucinogenic 60’s flashback with a little Alice in Wonderland thrown in. His costume evokes the notion that he is a former droog from Clockwork Orange. The story by itself is great: Five children have the opportunity to win a tour of a mysterious chocolate factory and four meet a horrible fate. Throw in Christopher Lee as Willy Wonka’s father and you have a wild card here.

Still, the fact remains that the 1971 movie was visually outstanding, and still holds up today. The contrast between the Charlie’s poverty in the grimy city and the sparkling lushness of the factory inside was easy to portray in 1970 industrial Germany that was only 25 years recovered from World War II. Although the magnificent Munich Gas Works stood in for the outside of the factory.

I wonder now how the actors will play the characters and their parents. And will they use the 1971 movie as a guide?

I would like to see this purely on subject matter alone. I will suspend belief that the 1971 movie never existed merely to find the entertainment value. However, this may end up being just like the Mike Myers Cat in The Hat: Lots of eye candy, but what happened to my book and movie? {BB}

IMDB Link to Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory.

Ed Note: More than one radio personality has mentioned that "Charlie" in Charlie And The Chocalate factory refers to a premise that Charlie from the 1971 movie took over the factory and is now looking for HIS replacement.

Added: December 11th 2004
Reviewer: BB
29 Point Scale Score:    [17]

Related Movie Link (IMDB): IMDB
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Language: english