Huge Disappointment, remake or not

Rating: 4/10 (17 July 2005)

Even though I loved the original, I still really wanted to give this a chance to stand on its own. I know that people sometimes have very high expectations for remakes, so I tried very hard to watch it independent of any preconceptions.
They made it pretty hard.
Remember that the original film was the FILMMAKER'S interpretation of the book. You see some of that in this new version, but you also see a lot of direct emulation of the PREVIOUS FILMMAKER'S INTERPRETATION. In other words, a lot of gratuitous copying from the original film. They just can't make up their mind if they want to be original or if they want to tweak the classic. So it's a little of both. Never mind the "sweeping" story changes like switching the parental escorts of two of the kids (the mother for the father and vice versa) which was different from the original film.
My number one complaint is the casting of Johnny Depp. And I really like him as an actor--usually, he's terrific. I don't know what happened here. He appeared to be an effeminate Raggedy Andy with issues. (Almost a walk through job, although perhaps this is as much to do with the directing.) Even if I had never seen the original film until now, had I seen both back to back in an afternoon, it would be impossible not to pick Gene Wilder as the standout actor. And for that matter, the original film.
This one was just a bit too produced, too forced, and there was too much "posing." Everything films today seem to de-spire to.
I know this is a Tim Burton film, and "odd is in." (I also liked some of Burton's previous films, so I wasn't negatively biased in my expectations.) The visuals were interesting, and some quite nice, but a lot of the computer animation seemed just that...oddly animated. Take for instance the kid who's stretched flat, as he walks out of the factory. The not-quite fluidness...the odd physics...the animation doesn't work in places. It ends up Saturday cartoon-ish.
I will say this...young children are bound to like this movie, because they won't pick up on the subtleties and things that don't mesh. The movement, the sound, the color--it should serve well as an electronic babysitter when you're trying to keep the kids occupied in front of the TV after the DVD is released. Still, not as good as the original version, though.
In the end: if there's one thing that filmmakers need to learn, it's that you can't go back to Oz.