Could have been great....but,

Rating: 6/10 (16 July 2005)

So, I got up early this morning. SUPER Excited to see what Tim Burton did with my favorite movie of all time....."Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Which opened today, or yesterday...whatever. I'm almost too depressed to type. Seriously.....I want to cry. No Snozzberries, no "Cheer up Charlie" no "Pure Imagination". No "Golden Ticket song" Nothing' at all. It was PRETTY WEAK. The infamous Boat Scene was written simply as a class 3 whitewater (brownwater) ride, no psychedelic freakout, which I was greatly hoping to see, what with all Mr. Burton's knack for being creepy. The Oompa loompas...turned into little digital disco monkeys in shiny suits. THEY WEREN'T EVEN ORANGE!!! As simple as the Oompa-Loompa songs in the original were, THEY WERE GREAT! The writing for the songs in this film was flat-out awful. The song sequences were WAY overdone, I got chills and goosebumps...because I was embarrassed for whomever wrote the songs. In fact, the writing of the entire script was shallow, unmysterious, unfunny, and just plain bad. Johnny Depp was frail as Wonka. A paper-thin wafer of what the character could have, and should have been. All of the characters were weak, except Grampa Joe. Grampa Joe was cool. The cinematography was, as expected, excellent. The film was visually appealing. I had no doubt that it wouldn't be. But that was all shot down the big chocolate chute by the lacklustre script. I knew as soon as I realized there was no "Fizzy Lifting Drink" drink scene, that the ending would suck too. And it did. Well, I'm gonna go shoot myself in the face. I hope you're happy Mr. Depp.