Beware what you expect

Rating: 4/10 (21 October 2005)

If you go expecting ANYTHING on the level of Gene Wilder's sublime performance as Wonka, you will be disappointed on many levels. The spare (also dated) sets of the original worked, and have aged, well. Burton's style is, well, Burton's style - he wows you but is unlikely to really surprise you with his approach. I've seen previous observations that this is a reimagining of the book and should not be called similar to the previous incarnation. Agreed, but some performances are so hard to "reimagine" (Brando in "Godfather," Bogart in "Casablanca, et al) that even attempting to do so is almost futile. A good try, but I'll stick with the original if I want to see the story, and with something else by Burton if I want to see his stylings.