Lovers of the original, beware!

Rating: 7/10 (18 July 2005)

When I first saw the previews for 'Charlie', I swore to never watch it. As a big fan of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I couldn't get over the fact that Tim Burton, of all directors, was going to try and "remake" such a classic! However, on 'date night' my husband cast aside interesting choices such as "Fantastic Four" and "Wedding Crashers" and gave me a choice of "Charlie" and "War of the Worlds". So admittedly, I dragged my reluctant behind into the theatre.
Not being a big Tim Burton fan, I was a little worried.
Let me just say if you love the old version, DO NOT COMPARE 'WILLY' and 'CHARLIE'! They shouldn't be compared, they should both be embraced as incredible masterpieces. Roald Dahl's book is fabulous, and both movies have that flair.
That being said, it's absolutely impossible not to compare the two.
While Gene Wilder brought an eccentric and enjoyable Wonka to the screen, Depp's character spins an oddly perverted Wonka and just rubs you the wrong way. He never quite looses that vaseline-tooth smile, or that "Where the hell am I?" look in his eyes.
Charlie was horribly cast. I'm sure that after Finding Neverland, Burton felt that Depp had true stage chemistry with Freddie Highmore, but I don't think that's the case. Charlie had no soul, he just stood there, breathing through an open mouth. And just as a personal annoyance, when you find $10 in the street and spend $.25 on a candy bar, get your change. Your eating cabbage soup for dinner 7 nights a week and you are going to leave $9.75 on the counter at the newspaper stand? Ugh.
Grandpa Joe was horribly cast. He and Charlie didn't interact at all, he was just there to take up space on camera.
If you've ever seen a black and white photograph digitally "colored", you'll know what I mean when I say Augustus Gloop looked just like that. His skin was perfect and pale, his lips a luscious pink, his hair golden blonde. Way too much make up and/or digital enhancement. Why they spent so much time on Gloop, I'll never know. Veruca was acceptable as a bratty snot. Violet was acceptable as the gum chewing, competitive type - in fact her 2005 character was a lot more competitive than her 1971 counterpart which helped tremendously. Her mother had that odd, recognizable yet unplaceable look to her - until I IMDb'd her and realized I knew her from Dodgeball as Fran, the unibrowed Slavic woman. Ewww. She did nothing but make googly eyes at all the men on screen, well as googly as you can make the eyes of a psychotic crazed killer on crack. I don't know who creeped you out more - Violet's mom, Wonka or worse yet - the two of them flirting in the most deranged manner I've seen since .. since .. well, ever. Oh, and does any one really care about Mike Teavee?
Which is more expensive, paying 50 little people to paint their faces orange and dance around, or digitally multiplying the same little man thousands and millions of times? I don't care about the answer, nor do I care for the latter.
And the songs, oh Lordy Lordy the songs.
While neither movie is entirely true to the book, the films choose different parts of the book to highlight which I think is fabulous.
That being said, Dahl's Charlie is probably the only film that not even Tim Burton can ruin. I give it 7 out of 10 stars, would recommend it to anyone and will never watch it again.