A sweet confection

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2005)

Johnny Depp plays Willy Wonka the owner of the world's largest chocolate factory. He places 5 golden tickets in his chocolate bars, each one is good for a one day tour through the factory.
Of the five kids who find the tickets only one of them, Charlie Bucket, is a good kid. The others are rotten, little brats named Veruca Salt (a spoiled rich kid always demanding a new possession), Violet Beauregarde (a gum-chewing, over-achieving clone of her ex-cheerleader mother -- these two always elicited laughter from the audience), Augustus Gloop (a tub-o-lard chocolate addict) and Mike Teavee (a mean nasty violent video game addict.) These four kids are entirely unlikable and this is a dead-on send-up of materialistic parents whose kids control them.
The stars of this movie are Tim Burton's visuals. Charlie Bucket's ramshackle house, where he lives with his parents and grandparents is straight out of a Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. Most of the movie takes place inside the chocolate factory. Each set inside the factory looks better than the last but the two that really stand out are the magic elevator and the squirrel scene which is marvelous.
Depp's Willy Wonka is weird and inscrutable, very much like Michael Jackson, although Depp said he did not base it on the gloved one. The supporting cast is solid with Christopher Lee, Helena Bonham Carter, Missi Pyle and James Fox. Charlie Bucket's grandfather, who accompanies him to the factory, is particularly good. Let's not forget the factory workers, all played by Deep Roy, called Oompa Loompas, which are about the farthest you could get from the Keebler elves.
Parents who take their kids will get the references to Kubrick's 2001, Hitchcock's Psycho, the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper and the Busby Berkley musical numbers.
The great film composer Danny Elfman wrote the score. The musical numbers alone are worth the price of admission with dancing Oompa Loompas in hysterical send-ups of MTV music videos.
For Tim Burton fans, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is not quite on a par with Beetlejuice and Batman.