AT THE MOVIES WITH KASEY BUTCHER
My mom loves musicals. Growing up it seems like we were constantly watching The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Tom Sawyer, or Grease. I can still remember the first time she showed my brother and me The Sound of Music and I’m sure I saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at least a dozen times. Having loved the original movie, I didn’t really see a reason to remake it. Having seen the remake, I still don’t.
For readers who may not know, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, based upon the book by Roald Dahl, is the story of an eccentric chocolateer who closes the doors to his factory permanently after competing candy-makers bombard his operation with spies, stealing many of his brilliant recipes. Years later, he decides to let five lucky children enter his factory, so he slips five golden tickets into five ordinary Wonka Bars. The ticket-finding children include Augustus Gloop, a greedy, porky boy, Veruca Salt, a spoiled little girl famous for saying “Daddy, I want an Oompa Loompa,” Violet Beauregarde, an obnoxious gum-chewing champion, Mike Teavee, an aggressive television addict, and Charlie Bucket, a humble, sweet boy who is “just lucky to be here.”
I am not sure exactly why director Tim Burton decided to re-do 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but I guess he just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He turned the factory into a more splendid eccentric world than anyone could afford to do in the early 70s but that’s about all he did. Contrary to what titles may suggest, Burton’s movie focuses more on Willy Wonka while the original was a story about Charlie. I feel that the movie loses something in doing that. Burton feels compelled to show Wonka’s past to reveal problems with his father, a dentist. I felt that was unnecessary to this story. Maybe he should have done a movie about that instead. While adding a back-story, Burton took out the great songs. The Oompa Loompas’ song is updated into hip-hop-like mantras that lack the clear social commentary the original provided and nothing Burton could have done can console me for the absence of “I’ve got a golden ticket” or “The Candy Man.”
Gene Wilder’s portrayal of Willy Wonka was a little neurotic; Johnny Depp made the man look flat out crazy. Sure he delivered some laughs, but a lot of the time he just seemed like he was high. And I don’t mean on sugar. It was not one of Depp’s better moments. Luckily, the kids delivered, many of them hitting the characters dead on. Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland) is adorable as Charlie and Julia Winter’s debut as Veruca is hilarious. Overall, however, I thought Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a sugar-coated let down. It was entertaining, but I’d still prefer to rent the original.
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