Flat, plodding, awful adaptation

Rating: 1/10 (29 September 2005)

Flat, plodding, awful adaptation of Roald Dahl's extraordinary novel. Once again, Tim Burton demonstrates that he is not a storyteller; he is, in fact, a man lucky enough to be able to surround himself with very talented cinematographers, production designers and publicists. Unfortunately, he has no educated friends who are script editors.
His only brilliant film, ED WOOD, is light years away from this putrid mess and was good because of the script and despite Burton.
One thing Burton is incapable of doing is giving a narrative momentum. In this outing, Wonka takes his children and their guardians on a tour of his factory. We follow the group from room to room and are forced to endure cataclysmically puerile songs from cloned Oompa-Loompahs, all played by the same irritating midget.
The film does not have the darker subplot of the original film and the wheelchair-like pacing drove me close to igniting the screen with the nearest blowtorch.
Johnny Depp is just wrong as Wonka. He's boring, too, because he's a "weirdo" who knows he's a weirdo and wants everybody else to know it, too. He's like the annoying guy at a social gathering who tells everybody how crazy he is. No, Mr. Depp, your weirdo is a bore.
The production design is what you'd expect for the fortune spent on this abortion and the cinematography is adequate.
Only the gloriously overrated Tim Burton, who has managed to pull the wool over many people's eyes for over a decade now, could make a rich concept such as this a forgettable bore and a candidate for PND (Permanent Negative Destruction).
As for screenwriter John August (scribe of the rancid BIG FISH), please throw your computer away and retire with Burton.