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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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Year: 2005 Rated: Insert Runtime: Insert
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, David Kelly, Noah Taylor, James Fox, Missi Pyle, Christopher Lee
Directed by: Tim Burton
Written by: John August
Based on the book by: Roald Dahl
Music by: Danny Elfman
Movie Studio: Warner Bros.
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HugeReviews.com Rating: Super Review by: Christian De Matteo

Remake Redemption

       Until the year 2001 I was a firm believer that if Tim Burton directed, all would be well... a little bizarre, but well.

        And then he gave us Planet of the Apes... and what the hell was that?

        Let me tell you;  It was crap, complete, abject, unadulterated, unfiltered, nauseating crap.

        I wasn't sure I could ever forgive him, and so, it was with a heavy heart that I went, two years later and not a little intoxicated, to see what the heck the fuss was all about with Big Fish.... and I left with tears in my eyes, not solely due to the amount of alcohol in my bloodstream.  I know that because I own it and have watched it several times and taken apart by it just as much each time I watch it.  Truly a brilliant treatise on fathers and sons, families and legends.

        Tonight, I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  In preparation, I reread both Dahl's amazing books (the second actually is more odd than amazing, but classic nonetheless), rewatched the Gene Wilder classic and instilled in my head the idea that, despite all these standards, I should attend with an open mind, and prepare to watch a new movie.

       And so it is!... kinda.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is terrific, fun, and wonderfully entertaining.  Should I regale you with tales of Johnny Depp's acting?  No, we all know he's wonderful, but the question is, how do you tackle Gene Wilder's brilliance?  Gene Wilder nailed Roald Dahl's Wonka, nailed him to a wall and stepped into this body, so on was Wilder?  How do you take that on and redo it?  It almost seems as pointless as Vince Vaughn trying to be Norman Bates.  Perkins was it; leave it be!  Well, you do it by taking the soul of the character and learning it, then taking your own interpretation of the source material and mixing that sole into it, with careful knowledge of the previous brilliance of portrayal one... and so is born... another Wonka.  Is this Dahl's Wonka?  I don't think so, but it's a good one nonetheless, and interesting one, an acceptable Wonka for thirty years after the first version of the film.

       The story here is much closer to the novel, sticking more carefully with less inventions, except of course, the one major invention where Burton again gets to instill his message on family, love and comradery.  And we're all okay with the addition because it gets Christopher Lee into the movie.  In fact, the addition makes sense and is one I think Roald Dahl might just have been okay with, had he thought of it.

       Overall, the film is very good, lots of fun and quirky like Burton is always quirky, combined with Dahl's quirkiness and the overall quirk of Johnny Depp.  It's clever, it moves fast, it's good and creepy at times in a rather stealthy way (I found the squirrels a little freaky) and it's delightful like it oughta be.  It doesn't and could never replace the original, a lesson Burton seems to have learned with the Apes (who he references with Mike Teevee), but updates a timeless tale for a world of less innocence and more danger, all these 34 years after Gene donned the tophat and taught us all wonder.

       More than anything, it's a fairy tale, a Tim Burton fairy tale which is more fairy tale than anything Disney puts out.  Like the Brothers Grimm knew, Burton knows that Fairy Tales aren't all fairy dust and wonder, but they're horror and cruelty, just like the real world.  The beauty of a true fairy tale is that it teaches you how to overcome the horror and cruelty, to achieve the wonder and magic.  Wonka learns it, Charlie knew it and we're just a little wiser for the watching.  Well done, Tim, there's just enough Edward Scissorhands in this to make it wonderful.  A fine remake, now we can all continue forgetting Planet of the Apes ever happened.

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