Terrific fairy tale with excellent acting and a touch of horror

Rating: 10/10 (22 September 2005)

I know that most people think that Johnny Depp's best movie was Pirates of the Caribbean. Of course, Pirates was an excellent movie, I think Johnny Depp has outdone all of his previous movies with Charlie and the chocolate factory.
I have to admit that I am European and here, at least here in Austria, the book is not well known and even the older movie is quite rare. So this movie was my first time with the Willy-Wonka-Universe. So I'm not reviewing how well the movie is based on the book or how good it is compared to the older one. The only thing I can review is the movie itself and I need to say that better movies appear very seldom.
From the visual part, there are stunning colors throughout Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. All situations are filled with emotions not only by wonderful actors but by visionary filming too. This is - certainly - a Tim Burton - movie in best tradition of Sleepy Hollow or Nightmare before Christmas. The scene where they first enter the factory and find themselves in this wonderful wonderland with the chocolate-fall is absolutely fantastic. Wonka's cynicism is great. His naive enjoyment of the kids when they run into trouble - always after not following his advice - is unbelievable. An his comforting sentences to the anxious parents are one of the highlights of the movie.
The storyline is quite tense and consists of three major parts with the middle part being the longest. The first part plays with the hopes of the audience and it's main character Charlie, the third part leaves an annoying unsatisfied feeling in the audience that is replaced by laughs and easement in the end. But the middle part is the genius one.
Looking like a colorful fairy-tale, trying to spread good emotions it is a horror flick in its heart. The scene at the beginning with the burning puppets initiates a typical 'group goes in - one by one is lost - one comes out'-theme. How the group is depleted is fantastically weird, so the movie is never horrifying but it is clear that something evil is going on and the songs of the oompa-loompas affirm it.
This movie is absolutely amazing, visually, acoustically and even by the amazing actors. If you don't know it - go watch it!