It's unbelievable! It's a miracle! It's Wonka-Vision!

Rating: 9/10 (16 July 2005)

This comment contains spoilers, so if you don't want anything spoiled, than just read the second paragraph below. I have just seen this movie, and I was completely speechless! Tim Burton, Danny Elfman and Johnny Depp have collaborated once again. This remake of the classic "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is very well done. The special effects are astonishing (effects that could not be done back in 1971), there were a lot of funny lines, and it was also scary at some parts (what else would you expect from Tim Burton). The intro during the opening credits was a little scary, because it didn't give much of a feeling like we were looking at a chocolate factory, but it was kind of cool that we got to see Wonka placing the five golden tickets on five completely random Wonka bars. The Oompa Loompas were also well developed as well as the songs they did. In the original, they sang their song with different lyrics for each rotten little kid, but in this movie, each kid got a completely different song! The way the other four kids were developed was a little disturbing to me. Verucca was sort of the same as she was in the original, but I think she scared me a lot more in the original than she did in this one. In the original, Augustus was dressed formerly, but in this movie, he's dressed like a typical chubby kid; his personality is still the same, though. Violet's a blonde in this movie, and she's also a martial arts champion; in the original, there was no real exploration to what Violet did for a living. Also in the original, Mike was obsessed with TV, but in this one, he's obsessed with video games; also in this movie, Mike is a lot ruder, and he doesn't really talk much about what he's into. Another thing that made this movie different from the original are the parts where Wonka thinks back to his childhood, which kind of made me feel a little sorry for the character. At first, I thought nobody could do Willy Wonka like Gene Wilder, but Johnny Depp did a wonderful job! As for the ending, unlike the original version, we actually get to see what happens to the other kids. Adding on, Tim Burton said that this version was going to follow the book more, so I was kind of fearing that this movie was going to end the way the book ended with Grandpa Joe just saying, "Yippee!" Fortunately, it had an all new ending different from the book and the original movie.
For those of you who haven't seen this movie yet and want to see it but don't want anything spoiled for you, all I'm going to say is, be prepared for an amazing movie!