Oy! Awful

Rating: 1/10 (1 January 2006)

Sorry to report: Don't bother. Please. I'm glad I waited until we could order it through the digital cable, rather than shell out the bucks and sit through the whole thing with two young squirmy kids. Depp is simply creepy and entirely unrelatable. I liked the bratty kids better than his Wonka-- not the way it's supposed to be. We saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a Junior Theatre live production-with an all kid cast- that was way more entertaining. Burton seems unable to decide whether he's going to go all-out crazy, over the top, Nightmare before Christmas/edward scissorhands surreal, or make it into a genial kids' movie, and flops. The Wilder version is better. I thought at least the effects would be better, or the movie would be visually better. It's not. Very disappointing. The parts with Charlie's parents/grandparents are the best/most interesting spots in the film, and that shouldn't be. Save it for when it appears on TV. We ended up fast forwarding through a lot of it-- that's how boring it was. Ouch!