A Burton film

Rating: 7/10 (29 August 2005)

Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is, like all of Burton's films, so visually delightful that the plot almost doesn't matter. This can make and break a film; sometimes Burton can undermine the importance of his story with the quirkiness of how it looks, like with "Edward Scissorhands". But his best films ("Sleepy Hollow" and "Big Fish") marry the visuals and the plot, so that the two work together to create an even flow for the movie.
I'd say "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" almost succeeds at that, but there are times when it feels like we're looking at post cards from the infamous factory. The film, like the original "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", is about a poor boy (Freddie Highmore) who wins a contest and travels with four other kids into the mysterious Wonka Chocolate Factory, run by the even-more-mysterious Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp). From there on in, it's an adventure through the many bizarre - and sometimes surreal - departments of the factory.
In the original, Willy Wonka was played by Gene Wilder in a mostly straight performance that channeled the witty, cane-twirling comedians of the thirties. Here Depp does carry a cane, but he does no twirling, and the performance is far from straight. His Willy Wonka is a mix of Michael Jackson and a Barbie doll, and grows more unnecessarily confusing as the movie goes on. It's not exactly a bad performance, but it does feel like Depp's parading his versatility. I think he should have toned it down a little, and gone for the innocence of his Sam character from "Benny & Joon".
The movie is not a misfire, as it has many good aspects. Freddie Highmore is excellent as Charlie, he is believably earnest. In fact, all of the child actors are pretty good. Most of the adult ones seem a little understated, impressive that they let the children take the foreground. David Kelly shines as Charlie's Grandpa Joe, giving probably the best and funniest performance in the movie - why hasn't this guy been a star for the past few decades? The Oompa Loompas are all played by Deep Roy, who manages to be creepier than those in the seventies version, who were orange with green hair. When you think about it, Roy's performance is tremendously complicated, as he had to move in synchronization with himself thousands of times.
Occasionally the movie gets lost in itself, raising questions that are never answered. Near the beginning Grandpa Joe tells an anecdote about Wonka's building a chocolate castle for an Indian prince. I was interested in seeing how this fitted into the story later on, but that's just it: it didn't. It seems to be just a comment on the film's own special effects. What Burton needs to learn is that it's mostly dangerous to remind his viewer's that they're watching a movie.
The plot is also a little too similar to the first's, it never really throws any new curves at us, we know exactly what to expect (though, curiously, the magical floating bubbles scene from the original is missing).
In short, it relies a little too much on Depp's performance and the set design - it seems Charlie and Grandpa Joe are almost forgotten when they enter the factory. But it's not boring, if predictable, and it's interesting to look at, and Depp's performance is intriguing, if not fitting.
Come on, it's a Burton film.
7.5/10