In anticipation of the November 16 release of the seemingly somewhat similar Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, from Stranger Than Fiction writer Zach Helm, I thought I’d re-post this review of Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, originally published upon its release in 2005. To wit:
In the wake of the death of his semi-estranged father
several years ago, as well as the birth of his own child, director Tim Burton
has had fatherhood on his mind quite a lot. For a filmmaker sometimes accused
of crafting pretty, idiosyncratic but emotionally distant baubles, it has
infused his work with a newfound directness. His most recent previous film, Big Fish, told the
story of a young man trying to come to terms with his tall-tale-telling paterfamilias, and
now, re-teaming with Big Fish
scribe John August, Burton delivers his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
recasting the movie again in a fantastical format as a sugarcoated parable of
familial bliss and dislocation. Colorful and anchored by another quirky star
turn from Burton’s go-to leading man, Johnny Depp, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
is a sort of adult-leaning kids’ movie, but one that also feels hermetically
sealed and a bit predetermined, if always still energetic.
Finding Neverland costar as
Charlie Bucket, a kind and earnest young boy who lives with his parents (Helena
Bonham Carter and Noah Taylor) and extended nuclear family, including Grandpa
Joe (Waking Ned Devine’s
David Kelly), in a lopsided abode in the shadow of reclusive confectioner Willy
Wonka’s towering sweets factory. For years the candy plant has been closed to
the outside world, the result of Wonka’s frustration with corporate spies out
to steal his secret recipes and ideas. One day, though, Wonka sends word that
hidden in his chocolate bars worldwide are five special, golden tickets to
visit his factory.
Pandemonium ensues, and one by one the young
winners come forward, including gluttonous Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz);
bossy, competitive Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb); bratty,
videogame-obsessed Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry); and over-privileged daddy’s girl
Veruca Salt (Julia Winter). Against considerable odds, poor Charlie secures the
final ticket, and sets out for his one-of-a-kind visit with Grandpa Joe, who
used to work at Wonka’s factory.
Once there, the eccentric Wonka gives his guests a
tour of his whimsical warehouse, which includes an entirely edible landscape
with a chocolate waterfall, grassy overpass and candy-apple trees. All of this
insanity is tended to by the diminutive, mischievous Oompa Loompas (all played
by a 4-foot, 4-inch guy named… Deep
loyal workers whom Wonka pays in cocoa beans. As the other children one by one
befall unfortunate accidents, Charlie moves closer to claiming the special
end-of-visit surprise promised as part of the tour.
Depp’s slightly fey performance as the germophobic
Wonka is a thing of crazy-quilt beauty, made all the more indelible by his Prince
Valiant bob and James Caan bathrobe (he has a nervous giggle, too, reminiscent
of Vince Vaughn). Burton also peppers the film with referential tips of the
tophat to many of his past movies, from Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood to Mars
Attacks! and Planet
of the Apes. But the movie feels like a bit of a put-on. Though
beautifully, painstakingly designed, several passages drag, and glimpses back
into Wonka’s fractured adolescent relationship with his father don’t carry
enough emotional heft to make them seem relevant to the here and now. The
movie’s musical Oompa Loompa numbers, meanwhile, come across as sludgy and
poorly mixed.
Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory forestalls if not eradicates entirely the memory of
Gene Wilder’s 1971 turn as Wonka — your mind doesn’t tend to be elsewhere
during a Tim Burton movie — but also comes across as perhaps nothing more than
a lively curio. An expensive sweet, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has the capacity to
delight, but it also, for all its authorial authenticity, feels somewhat
isolated. (Warner Bros., PG, 118 mins.)