Fantastic remake

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2006)

After a simply super Spring of Star Wars, Sin City and umm... Batman, I must confess that I feared the subsequent season would be unable to compete. And I feared I might be right until Tim Burton teamed up with Johnny Depp (who else!) to produce summerthing really special - a deliciously dark big screen remake of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
The tale is centred around Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory which nobody has entered for years and which appear for all the world to be deserted. "The only thing that comes out of that place is the candy". That is until Mr Wonka decides he needs an heir and so opens his legendary doors for five lucky children. All the children are fantastically well acted given the tender years of the performers and 12-year-old Freddie Highmore, in particular, gives a superbly accomplished performance as young Charlie. But as heart-warming as Charlie's innate goodness is, and as amusing as Augustus Gloop's innate German-ness is; the real star of this show is Johnny Depp as the simultaneously creepy, hilarious, pitiful and peculiar Willy Wonka.
One of the reasons he is Hollywood's hottest property is the deppth and versatility of his acting. He can change effortlessly from a swashbuckling rogue in 'Pirates of the Caribbean', a drug-dealing family man in 'Blow' and now this oddball chocolatier. There is more than a hint of Wacko Jacko about his childlike performance with that familiar nervous giggle and aura of naivety. Most of the film's comedy comes through him, and I often found myself chockling at lines like "Everything in this room is edible. Even I'm edible. But that is called cannibalism, my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies." And so on to the inevitable comparisons with the 1971 original. For me, Johnny Depp easily outstrips Gene Wilder in the lead role and screenwriter John August doesn't fall in to the trap of attempting to simply replicate the original. The addition of flashbacks to Wonka's troubled childhood is simply genius and as a whole, this 2005 version is without doubt new and improved. The visual effects and fine performances make for an almost flawless film with only two weaknesses. Firstly, the modern oompah loompahs just lacked the creepy humour of the old ones. But most importantly, Augustus Gloop did not get a large enough role  greedy, overweight Germans make good viewing!