Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Burton's Brain Candy

The new version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” ended up in my mailbox the other night. Truth be told, I have to clean out my Netflix Queue soon. I had forgotten that this movie was at the top. I tend to have a ton of movies I want to see, but most of the time I end up pushing movies I “sorta” want to see to the bottom. This was one of those movies.

I guess I really liked the original, heck I grew up watching it. I didn’t want my notions of the new version screwing up my fond memories. I kept this attitude up until I started to hear the Danny Elfman score at the beginning. Then something strange happened. I realized that this was a different movie. This wasn’t a fun romp, this was a dark Tim Burton comedy. The characters weren’t childlike and fun, they were dark and depressing (what else do you expect from a Tim Burton film?).

Johnny Depp was his usual bizarre self playing a very messed up Willy Wonka. His creepy style and off color humor made the movie a lot easier to take.

I am getting a bit tired of the “strange character” Depp in his recent movies. It seems that once he puts on a costume, he becomes that character to the bone. Where is the Depp that I loved in Chocolate or Gilbert Grape?

I enjoyed this movie a lot because it felt as if we were seeing what was going on in Tim Burton’s head as he read the book as a (really messed up) child. The slanted houses and gloomy buildings are signature Burton. The characters all seem to be people you would encounter in a very strange dream and the actors all do a great job of reinforcing that fact.

This movie isn’t as good as it could have been, but it’s good enough for me to recommend.