The Worst Remake of All Time

Rating: 1/10 (24 July 2005)

Johnny Depp played some cross between Michael Jackson and Gary Coleman, not the mysterious old man portrayed by Gene Wilder in the original. Depp acted disturbed and perversely childish. Tim Burton took too many liberties, significant parts of the story from the book that were included in the original were cut from this movie. The ending tried to tack on a message about the importance of family, however that failed miserably. The music was probably the worst part, the songs were not cute and catchy, but jazzy and Vegas-like, with unintelligible lyrics sung by Deep Roy (Umpa Luma). Roy was also miss-cast looked too much like a human which detracted from the illusion. Visuals took little advantage of the advances in technology over the past few decades, some scenes such as the chocolate room (chocolate meadow and river) were much more elaborate in the original despite being filmed 35 years earlier. Finally, there were a lot of inconsistencies of time and place which did not seem purposeful and detracted from the story.