Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Starring: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Missi Pyle, Deep Roy

Directed by: Tim Burton

Rating: ****

Plot: A poor boy named Charlie Bucket lives in a run down home with his family. All four of his grand parents live in this house, and sleep in the same bed. Nothing seems to be going right until a contest by the local candy maker Willy Wonka is announced. World wide there are only five golden tickets hidden under the wrappers of chocolate Wonka bars. The first goes to a very fat German boy, the second to a spoiled rich girl whose father had almost a thousand employees unwrap Wonka bars until it was found. The third ticket was found by an over the top chewing gum contest winning girl. The fourth by a maniac child who knows everything about computers and loves video games to an extreme, he also hates chocolate. Young Charlie still never gives up hope after two tries still not finding the golden ticket. By luck he fines money in the street and and buys a Wonka bar with it, and amazingly he finds the last golden ticket. He and his grand father plus the other winners meet the one and only Willy Wonka and go into his amazing factory, the harmless tour begins to become more of a test then anything else as the children face off with extreme situations, like meeting the Oompa Loompa's for instance. Lots of candy and mind blowing visuals and creepy Johnny Depp ensue.

Acting: Johnny Depp is a character actor in a leading man's body. He loves finding weird and interesting characters. I do suggest when seeing this movie if you are a fan of the original movie you might want to try and forget Wilder's version, because Depp does not try to play that Wonka at all. Here Willy Wonka hides his pain of a bad relationship with his father, who we only see in flash backs but is played by the amazing Christopher Lee. Wonka is so obsessed with candy he has made it his life so of course the man is going to be a little odd. He doesn't know how to deal with people very well so at first it is odd that he has made this tour for these children, it becomes clear when the movie ends or course. I love the original film but I must say I found Depp's Wonka hilarious and almost more realistic if that is even possible. The rest of the cast was also powerful, all the children did out standing jobs. Freddie Highmore is very charming for such a young man and he could possibly grow into a very powerful actor when he gets older. Highmore is very likable as Charlie where you really do want him to win Wonka's prize over the other little brats on the tour. David Kelly who plays Grandpa Joe was also perfect casting being very likable and almost under used towards the end of the film. I can not finish this section of the review without bringing up Deep Roy who plays the Oompa Loompa's the musical bits with him dancing was hilarious. Without this man this movie would have been rather dull actually, his facial expressions as the Loompa's was alone fantastic.

Directing/Writing: I've always loved Tim Burton I think he is very talented. When I heard he was going to direct this movie like a year ago I was very excited believing that if anyone was going to remake that film, it should be him. As you would expect this movie is visually amazing, the chocolate waterfall in the factory looks great, actually now to think of it everything looked great. Burton's visual talent is obvious with films like Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish but here he uses them in the right way and never really over does it. This version of the movie is actually closer to the book than the original film. We also get to see some of Wonka's past as a child and we get to witness why and how exactly he got so into candy. This in a way is trying to explain why Wonka is so over the top. The musical numbers were great, not like the one's in the original but very unique and interesting. My only problem would be the film's ending, it seemed slow and off base with the rest of the movie. Once the tour of the factory is over the movie speeds up trying to end everything up not to ware the audience down I guess. To me it seemed rushed and really put a "meh" end to a really great movie.

Overall: One of the more enjoyable movies of the summer. It made me laugh pretty hard in multiple scenes and the visuals alone should make this movie a must for everyone. So just do yourself a favor put the original away in the back of your mind for a bit and try this version out. I'm not loving the Hollywood craze to remake EVERY movie they possibly can but this was actually a good time and worth checking out.