Funny and enjoyable

Rating: 7/10 (18 July 2005)

I agree more or less with what Roger Ebert said about this movie: Depp's performance doesn't sink it. And I say that being, like Ebert, a big Depp fan. I was just marveling last night at his performance in "Ed Wood." I loved him in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?", "The Pirates of the Caribbean" and a lot of other movies, too. But he goes off the rails in this one, and his Willy Wonka is just plain creepy and annoying.
Nevertheless, the movie has so many other treats that Depp's performance can't distract us for long. There's a boat, for instance--oh my, what a boat! I haven't laughed out loud that hard inside a theater for a long, long time. And Deep Roy as the Oompa Loompas is also memorable.
And then there are the squirrels. I have to say that the scene with the squirrels must be the single most imaginative, funniest idea Burton has ever come up with, and it is carried off perfectly.
And although Depp's character doesn't come off well, I don't want to make it sound like it's all bad. He is very funny at certain points. But he's funny in spite of his persona, not because of it.
So the movie has its flaws, but so did the original; that doesn't get in the way of it being enjoyable. To tell the truth, I think it would be impossible to make a movie of this story that didn't have its flaws. It's hard to be sure just what Dahl was getting at, if you ask me. So any interpretation will be open to question. The main thing is that it was fun for me, an adult, to watch.
I would have thought that certain scenes in the movie would have been too intense for very young children, but apparently very young children are all hardened these days, because not one of the toddlers in the audience made so much as a whimper at anything.