Decadent, Decayed, Toothless and Nauseating

Rating: Null/10 (10 February 2007)

Every new release from Tim Burton fills me with more dread than the last, knowing that inevitably I will be sucked into the vacuum of his visual drug-dealing. Despite my long history of remorse and shame at the hands of his opiates ("Mars Attacks," "Planet of the Apes," "Batman"), the misguided heraldry and adulation that is heaped upon this "auteur" always seems to break down my defenses. Why do people love this guy so much? He's a TERRIBLE filmmaker!
With "Charlie & The Chocolate Factory" I held out as long as I could, but my love for Roald Dahl's enduring fable finally broke my resolve, so with dread and trepidation (and after careful research of reviews from Netflix, IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes) I rented the horrible thing and, with trembling hands and clenched teeth, popped it into my DVD player.
My first feelings of regret came from the trailer for "Corpse Bride," which, tellingly, uses the music from "Nightmare Before Christmas" to sell it's "creative authenticity." Admittedly, the latter of those movies is among my favorite animated films, hearkening back to those dreamy yesteryears when Tim Burton held such promise, with his wonderful early work ("Vincent," "Frankenweenie," "Pee Wee's Big Adventure"). What a long hard road it's been since then, with only one great feature to light the way. And even then, he didn't DIRECT it.
"Charlie & The Chocolate Factory" begins with what seems to be Danny Elfman's score from "Batman." Or is it "Sleepy Hollow"? Or "Spiderman"? I can't tell the difference. His work has become so indistinguishable that it's simply a caricature of itself. At any rate, the score immediately sets us up for the realization that this won't be any wondrous experience, but rather a dark and sinister journey into the unconscious. The kind you've been hammered into.
Then the first act begins and it actually started to suck me in. Except for the inevitable inclusion of Mrs. Tim Burton (a thankfully understated Helena Bonham Carter), the film is impeccably cast and surprisingly warm. Could it be that Tim Burton has found some feeling for the living? The story's awful, ticket-winning children from around the globe are given extra dimension and what might be called (in a Tim Burton film?) motivation, making them appealingly funny and suggesting that this journey into their demise might provide us with real insight into Roald Dahl's great wit.
But every time Willy Wonka appears the fun starts to dampen a little bit more, his flat American accent contrasting with the dreamy Eurocentric storytelling, boding ill for where the film will be going. Wonka's final introduction into the movie is a perfect symbol of the Burton style of film-making, a cheerful but joyless festival of blank-eyed puppets that eventually bursts into flames. Anyone who's witnessed the demise of the Disney ride knows that when you can't think of anything truly witty, you pretend that something's gone wrong. It saves actually working out an idea. 'Nuff said.
It's not only with the introduction of Johnny Depp's typically one-note character (Why is this guy so beloved? He's a TERRIBLE actor!) that the film really starts to suck, but in the sorry excuse for a script, which betrays Dahl's wicked imagination at every turn. Willy Wonka becomes a precious adolescent more loathsome and irritating than any of the children touring his factory. In the book and first film, he's a vain but self-aware master of the polite put-down, but in this debacle he's a nasty, witless child with no point of view whatsoever, and even fewer manners. He's more a product of the San Fernando Valley than of the English countryside. Could it be that Willy Wonka is supposed to BE Tim Burton? One wonders why the rumored version with Marilyn Manson never materialized. IT might have been able to act the part.
The supposedly wondrous surprises and confectionery marvels of the Wonka factory's inner sanctum, although opulently imagined (but never convincingly rendered in CGI), are treated with derision, bewilderment and contempt by even the master chocolateer himself. There's never a sense that this character could have brought these things to life while hiding under his bed.
Even Wonka's eccentric phobias don't make sense. Immediately he's afraid of being touched, apparently a germophobe, but then we see him in flashback chopping his way through a jungle and licking the fluid from a dead bug. Who writes this stuff? THAT was the Willy Wonka the first movie never delved into, the wondrously adventurous explorer of weirdly right delights. But it's the last we see in this version, before it devolves into an ugly, unrepentant exploration of Wonka's damaged psyche.
Eventually, after all the confectionery carnage and bad, really bad, visual effects, there's an extended ending tacked on that supposedly brings humanity to the man. Instead, it comes off as just another Hollywood flameout. The whole setup has been a sham. The chocolate factory is an opium joint run by Michael Jackson. It's so robustly wicked that the only option is to move Charlie's run-down shack into the factory to bring any sense of warmth or family to the life of Wonka, the movie or the viewers.
Ugh! I've never longed for Gene Wilder so much in my life.