Does it's job well

Rating: 7/10 (2 September 2005)

STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits
To any child who ever grew up in Blighty, the tales of Roald Dhal should be as familiar as apple pie. So every child who ever was is likely to be familiar with the tale of Charlie (Freddie Highmore) a young kid with problems in life. His family don't have much and, without even realizing it (or at least not making that much of a fuss about it!) the building contractors have done a really sh!tty job on his house (it's slanting!) and every time a family member enters the house, they address the others by saying 'hello Buckets!) ??? Anyway, Charlie's luck's about to change when eccentric chocolate maker William Wonka (current wonder-kid Johnny Depp) places some shiny tickets in bars of his chocolate brands. Charlie picks the losing ticket at first and has to make do with his no-doubt scrumptuous choccy-bar. But his grand-father's a persistent old fruit and uses his money to buy him another one. This time luck lets him be a lady, and pleasant young Charlie gets sent off to Wonka's factory, with it's mountains of choccy and candy and Oompa Loompas (singing, dancing weirdos in costumes all played by one peculiar actor!) with a load of otherwise snotty brats who need a moral lesson in their lives. And Wonka's just the person to give it.
Through-out the last year or so, I've been trying to get more into children's films. From the age of 16 or so, I'd sort of accepted that I'd grown out of them and focused all my attention on more high-brow, adult orientated stuff. But I started to notice a lot of critics giving rave reviews to a lot of these kiddie flicks, so I gave Finding Nemo a try, no great shakes (in my opinion!) but I followed it up with The Incredibles (which was ace!) earlier in the year. And I remembered a little film called Toy Story, released nearly ten years ago, which I could still appreciate today. So I took it on that giving my time to kids films again wasn't such a bad thing. So I'll try and seek out the Harry Potter films sometime soon (can't believe they're making a fourth film!) And I was glad to have let down my reservations and seen this adaptation by Tim Burton.
Those already familiar with Burton's unique style of filming will find CATCF terra ferma, and so will those coming to experience his unique approach to family films. But despite all the rave reviews, it's undeniable that this is a film with some serious flaws. And these mainly revolve around the lead star. Highmore as Charlie, as the lead star, gets hardly any screen-time but ironically in the scenes he's in, he kind of annoyingly wholesome, brattishly so, even. And as Wonka, you could say Depp is kind of mis-cast, but he is sort of hammy for some parts of the film (although you get the impression he did the best he could with the part!) The supporting cast are quite good, in the shape of Helena Bonham Carter, Christopher Lee and Noah Taylor, through to the more unknown stars. The Oompa-Loompa singing/dancing sequences are also quite well done and have a genuine sort of charm to them.
Overall, I can say this mostly succeeds as a good representation of what fans of Burton's usual work will be expecting, but no matter what everyone else is saying, there are some serious flaws present and it serves as no great notch on Depp's present career high. ***