Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

As much as I enjoyed Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder in.......who knows when - I think Tim Burton has done an absolutely amazing job with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I went and saw it today :-)

(and analysed the entire thing while sitting there loving every second of it......does it ever get annoying, thinking "that's a nice shot, good contrast" and "I like how the music modulated to a minor key there to denote that change in tension" ???? Drives me nuts sometimes, but I just can't seem to stop! ;-)

Anyway.....

Johnny Depp was a really good Wonka. There were times where you'd just go, "Is he actually psycho, or just eccentric? Is he about to go nuts now?" - and then he wouldn't - "how about now?" - nope.

It would have been easy to portray a character bordering on insane or psychotic. Johnny Depp didn't do that - instead he gave us glimpses into the darker, crazier side of his nature occasionally. Slightly unsettling. But for the most part, he was an eccentric, but nice guy - if completely off-the-wall.

Why am I sounding like a journalist?! :-p

I loved the theme of the movie, and if I had to sum it up in a sentence, I'd say "Family is more important than anything else." Coming from Hollywood, that's not bad!!! And for once we saw a boy who had both a mum and a dad, and a family who loved each other and would stick together no matter what. Can we see some more movies like this? :-D

Also loved the way the film treated the topic of the importance of money - Charlie's family are poor. Really poor. They have a hole in their roof (right next to where Charlie sleeps, so in snowy British winters, that can't be fun), they eat cabbage soup for tea every night, and they can only afford to buy one chocolate bar for Charlie a year - which is his birthday present. *Feeling sad yet? Wait for it......* But no-one complains once, throughout the entire movie, about it. Man, they had a good attitude. When they had nothing but cabbage to put in their soup, Mrs Bucket said "Oh well, nothing goes better with cabbage than cabbage" and promptly put more in.

Anyway, one of my favourite moments is when Charlie opens his chocolate bar, hoping for a golden ticket. It's not there. So he says he's going to share it with everyone (i.e. mum, dad and both sets of grandparents - 6 other people). Of course they refuse, but he says, "It's my birthday present and I'll do with it what I want" and hands a piece out to everyone. I just sat there, counting how many pieces he was handing out, watching the chocolate bar diminish, until he only had one piece left.

And you know what? I think Charlie got it right. I think that's the proper value of things, of money - it's not as important as love. *And it made me a little teary*

The other thing I loved was the look of the film - very stylistic, lots of details and lots of contrast and almost exaggeration - like a black, tall building standing alone in the middle of the snow.

Oh, and the music was good too (Danny Elfman, who I'd never heard of, but I'm going to have to look into his work!)

Great movie :-) I recommend it.