I have a feeling that a lot of people are going to dislike Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because of the nostalgia factor. “There was already a 1971 film called Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, so why did Tim Burton feel the need to remake this one?” I can see a lot of people asking this question, and rightly so. The first film ended up becoming a cult film, and I’ve met quite a few people who like to deny the fact that anyone other than Gene Wilder can play the character of Willy Wonka.
I don’t have that nostalgia clouding my vision of what Willy Wonka should be, or what the film should look like. As blasphemous as this may sound, I never got around to seeing the 1971 film. I’m aware of how that may sound, but to be honest, that movie never interested me. I had no desire to see it, and therefore never did.
Without any clouding of what I thought would happen when a film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book was created, I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I ended up being let down. This is mostly because of Depp’s performance as Willy Wonka, but also by the plot and script. The visuals look great however, and you can tell that Burton was certainly having fun creating his own vision of the world inside the chocolate factory.
Willy Wonka himself is an odd character, and this doesn’t work the way you might think it is. Wonka is so weird, it’s like he is existing in his own world. He acts completely different from every other character of in the movie. It is almost like you aren’t supposed to fully understand him, which makes it far stranger that a back-story is tacked on to explain almost everything that Wonka does.
As a child, little Willy wasn’t allowed to eat candy. See, his father (Christopher Lee) is a dentist, and therefore doesn’t allow him to eat any. This is the entire reason for him starting up his chocolate factory. Through flashbacks, it is made clear that we are supposed to care about Willy, despite the fact that he doesn’t act anywhere remotely close to how a human being would actually act. I can see how he could be a slightly off-beat character, given the fact that he hasn’t had human contact for years, but I don’t think that he would forget about how to interact with humans in that period of time. He clearly spent his childhood at school, the place where many of the fundamental social behaviors are learned.
There are also a few problems that come from the plot. There isn’t really a reason to care for any of the characters within the movie. Everyone in Charlie’s family is poor, and they all have reasons that you would want to care for them, but the film seems to try to play with your emotions in a way that makes you dislike them. The other children, and their families, are also disliked, but for different reasons; they’re supposed to be that way. However, like Charlie’s family, this is hammered into our heads. In fact, just out of spite to the film, I wanted one of the other children to win the fabulous prize at the end of the film.
I realize now that I haven’t even touched upon the main story of the film yet. Well, Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) is a poor child who has a birthday coming up. He lives in a town which has the singular highlight of possessing Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Wonka hasn’t been seen in years, but, in a shocking change of heart, has hidden 5 golden tickets in his latest batch of chocolate bars. The children who find these tickets are allowed to enter his factory for a day, and one of them will end up with a glorious prize.
Coincidentally, Charlie has a birthday coming up, and his birthday present is a singular chocolate bar. Tragically, this bar doesn’t end up containing a golden ticket. Discouraged, Charlie wanders into town where he finds money on the ground. Instead of taking this money home and giving it to his parents, (they are quite poor, after all), he selfishly goes and buys another candy bar. Rejoice, as he got a golden ticket! Soon, he and his grandfather meet the rest of the lucky recipients and everyone gets to go inside the factory. Turns out, Wonka has hidden motives in his warm invitation, one that involves teaching some naughty children big lessons.
One inside the factory, the film does marginally improve. We aren’t beaten over the head with the circumstances that each of the characters has, and instead, we get to focus on the visuals. They’re quite stunning, and are always a treat to look at (no pun intended, I swear). They are creative, and never become a bore to look at. Sadly, they only feature as a backdrop to the rest of what is going on.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a film that kind of makes me want to see the 1971 film that was adapted from Roald Dahl’s book. I want to see if the cult status is has attained makes it a better film than this one. This film isn’t great, or even all that good. It’s beautiful to look at, but it lacks in its characters and in the way that Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka acts. He’s supposed to be an odd character, and while he is, tacking on a back-story that attempts to make you feel for him ends up making you care far less than you should.