Burton is his own worst enemy

Rating: Null/10 (22 August 2005)

Numerous people, including Roald Dahl himself, felt that his highly regarded children's classic, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was poorly treated in its first filmic interpretation. Mel Stuart's 1971 film (which went as far as being named after Willy Wonka) was indeed flawed and sometimes cringeworthy, yet it has numerous original and endearing moments that leave a lasting impression. Enough, in fact, to make it a cult classic.
But that hasn't stopped the detractors complaining. So with so many remakes around these days, why not at least try and put things right? And who better to do so than Tim Burton, that strange and interesting director who has given us a handful of mini classics in the past? He understands Roald Dahl better than anyone else, or so it seems.
Now, for the few of you who don't know, the story revolves around the enormous chocolate factory of the reclusive Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp). No one has seen him for years, and he has suddenly decided to invite five children - just five, and no more - to accompany him on a tour of the factory itself. Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore), despite his poor conditions, never stops hoping that he will be one of those five. But even he cannot imagine what surprises lie in store for him.
Like The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy before it, everything seems set up for a wonderful modern film adaptation. There's so much acting talent (Johnny Depp, relative newcomer Freddie Highmore, Helena Bonham-Carter, Edward Fox, Noah Taylor, Christopher Lee), so much wonderful production design (courtesy of Alex McDowell, who did an equally impressive job for Minority Report) and numerous brilliant moments. And yet...and yet...it all feels so rehearsed. There's a lack of spontaneity, there's little feeling. As Shakespeare would put it, it's "all sound and fury, signifying nothing." Let me make it clear that I love the book. As a result, one of the things I personally found dissatisfying about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was its tendency to leave out many of the book's classic early moments. Burton and screenwriter John August overcome this flaw by ignoring the earlier film and successfully re-imagining some of the best scenes in the book in their own right. Unfortunately, these scenes are all too literally replicated, so while fans of the book will be happy to see them, they lack inspiration and leave little to the imagination. Which, it should be said, was one of the key themes of the original story.
I could also argue that the pre-chocolate factory section of the film is rather rushed. This is more costly than you'd expect, and it leaves us with a poorly written leading protagonist. Freddie Highmore does his best with Charlie, but there is little in the film that suggests he will become the truly deserving winner of the prize that Wonka has in store for his favourite child.
The arrival of Johnny Depp enlivens things immensely. Twenty minutes inside the factory with this guy, and I thought "He makes Gene Wilder look sane." Unfortunately, Depp's fantastic performance is hampered by Burton's interference, in the form of childhood flashbacks for Wonka. These may be innovative, but they are distracting and forced. It's as if Burton felt he had to justified to give Wonka a personality, when really he should have let Depp do most of the work. (Pretty much in the same way Gore Verbinski did in Pirates Of The Caribbean.) Roald Dahl managed to find the correct balance of pathos and irreverence in Wonka; neither Mel Stuart nor Tim Burton have been able to do so. It's a shame.
Of course, those who have come along just to see their favourite book faithfully and stylishly recreated, with a few twists here and there (and these include the way Burton has staged the Oompa Loompas' songs) won't be disappointed. It even appears, at one point, that he has given the film a remarkable ending; unfortunately, the film ends up closing with a poorly handled, overly moralistic sermon on "family values", that is jarring in the context of the film.
So there you have it. For all that Tim Burton does right with this film, he misses an opportunity. And thus we have another "Hitchhiker's Guide" - enjoyable, but could and should have been much, much more.
Rating: 6/10