Excellent

Rating: 9/10 (6 August 2005)

I thought the film was excellent. Jonny Depp's performance as Willy Wonka was fabulous, creepy yet lovable. I can see why so many people were drawing parallels between Depp's Wonka and Michael Jackson.
Charlie Bucket, played by Freddie Highmore, was almost too virtuous to live, but within the reality built by the film he worked.
The bad children were all excellent also, each one detestable in their own special way, each one a nice anti-Charlie, making Charlie seem even nicer in comparison.
Although I liked the Oompa Loompa's, I didn't think they were as good as the original film's. They would have been better if they were orange, with green wigs. But you can't have everything, I guess.
There were dozens of points in the film where I had to stop myself from laughing too hard (so I didn't miss the next bit), which in my opinion is a fabulous sign! The special effects were a little obvious, but they don't spoil the enjoyment of the film, and the sets are fantastical in the extreme which works very well for the film.
The only criticism I could really level at it was that I didn't think the addition of Wonka's dad into the story did anything beneficial at all. You could feel where the film slid from "book content" to "new stuff." It felt very much like two separate stories which they'd tried very hard to hammer together.