Charlie and The Chocolate Factory: a male review

After much waiting and even some gnashing of teeth, I finally made it to see Johnny Depp's latest flick. For the most part it was what I expected. The movie took clear pains to avoid rehashing the original verbatim, or visualum, or whatever Latinos would say. I will have to say that I found it a bit disheartening when Gene Wilder made a solicitous cameo as Mr. Slugworth. When he and Johnny Depp fought it out with candy cane light sabres in the Wonka candy land and Wilder got his arm cut off, then slowly melted in the chocolate lake with hand extended upwards in a clear homage to Terminator...that was really weird. But, when your father is Sith Lord Count Dooku, you'd expect the Dark Side to be very strong in Wonka's character.

Okay, so on to what really happened in the movie. The casting for children was excellent, especially Veruca Salt, perhaps my favorite character from the original. Let's face it, Charlie and Gramps are pretty damn dull, though I like the new gramps much better--despite him lacking an awesome mustache. And even with janked up teeth grayed from decades of eating cabbage soup, I will do Charlie's Mom (Helena Bonham Carter) very, very hard. Then again, I was ready to bone her in Planet of the Apes, monkey suit and all.

The jury is still out on Johnny Depp's performance. Not so much on the execution (he did a fantastic job per usual), but more on the screenwriting. I have never read the book, but I doubt that Roald Dahl envisioned a character cross between Edward Scissorhands and Michael Jackson. 'Nuff said. I applaud the special effects meisters with their ambitious task of giving every one of the Oompa Loompas the same face. While the CGI wasn't flawless in every case, it didn't detract from the overall experience. For me, the best parts of the movie were the Oompa Loompa songs. I detected a hint of Rick James and a smattering of Village People in one of their renditions. Truly marvelous.

Props for not completely bastardizing the original, no props for creating a movie that can't really stand on its own.

Pluses: Oompa Loompa songs, Elfman's scoring, Johnny Depp
Minuses: Johnny Depp's character, the simple fact that it's a remake of an excellent original

Overall, I give the movie a B/B+.