Who and the Chocolate Factory?

Rating: 3/10 (12 March 2007)

This movie was supposedly meant to follow Roald Dahl classic children's book? I'm not sure what book they're following, but there's stuff in this film that would make poor Mr. Dahl gag on an Everlasting Gobstopper.
This is easily the weakest work for both Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Burton simply has no concept of the joyous celebration and positive message of the original manuscript. Instead, he delivers a mean spirited and misguided interpretation that is needlessly grim and depressing. Depp appears to be concocting a character which is a grotesque montage of The Wicked Witch of the West, Michael Jackson, and Carrot Top. He always has some psychotic expression on his face which distracts you from the main story. The Oompa Loompas (really one guy multiplied by awful CGI) are sinister looking, and their songs stink. The children vary from boring to annoying.
As if this isn't bad enough, the script includes ugly back stories about Wonka that add nothing, disrupt the flow of the story, and transform a character originally written as well-intentioned but cautiously secretive into a vile, selfish, brutal freak of nature devoid of any redeeming qualities at all. The tacked on sequence about Wonka's family problems is just excruciatingly painful to sit through. A definite misfire on this one.