Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2005 film adaptation of the 1964 book of the same name by Roald Dahl. The film was directed by Tim Burton. The film stars Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket and Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. The storyline concerns Charlie, who takes a tour he has won, through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by Wonka.

Development for another adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory began in 1991, which resulted in Warner Bros. providing the Dahl Estate with total artistic control. Prior to Burton's involvement, directors such as Gary Ross, Rob Minkoff, Martin Scorsese and Tom Shadyac had been involved, while Warner Bros. either considered or discussed the role of Willy Wonka with Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Michael Keaton, Brad Pitt, Will Smith and Adam Sandler.

Burton immediately brought regular collaborators Johnny Depp and Danny Elfman aboard. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory represents the first time since The Nightmare Before Christmas that Elfman contributed to the film score using written songs and his vocals. Filming took place from June to December 2004 at Pinewood Studios in England, where Burton avoided using digital effects as much as possible. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released to critical praise and was a box office success, grossing approximately $475 million worldwide.

My semi-lenghty, not-so-blurby review!

Whereas 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, probably one of my favorite films of all-time, relied heavily on underlying menace and ambiguity toward Wonka as its source of narrative whimsy, Tim Burton’s version relies solely on charm and quirks, not totally unexpected coming from Burton, director/creator of such charm and quirk fests as the awesome Nightmare Before Christmas and Big Fish. That’s not to say such charm is never effective: Freddie Highmore, the little bastard who almost made me cry in Finding Neverland (but did not succeed!), is perfect as Charlie, as is the cast playing his indigent, yet entirely wholesome, family. The Burton-esque stylized home settings and factory are sprawling and inspired without being too overbearing, and the interaction between the rivaling children is amusing without being too evocative of the original. The problem with the film starts when the children enter the factory, though, and Burton diverts attention from the Charlie/grandfather dynamic and focuses solely on Wonka Wonka Wonka for the next 95 minutes or so. (We don’t even get the scene or any that mirrors that of the soda drinking/burping/flying too close to the fan scene, which was always one of my favorites.) Johnny Depp’s performance, which I am ambivalent about, becomes reflective of the film itself: he’s weird and androgynous and bizarre (the movie isn’t androgynous, but, yanno), which makes for occasional fun and laughs, but the mysticism and menace behind him, that which Gene Wilder’s Wonka had in spades, is lacking. The Oompa Loompas also suffer the same fate. The bumbling, yet oddly endearing, little guys from the Wilder version are now replaced by ethnic oddities whose song-and-dance routines only amplify Burton’s grasp for quirks. They’re weird, and their derivations, now fully explored, even weirder. We all remember the scene at the end of Willy Wonka where Charlie opens the door to Wonka’s lair (er, lair thingy) and gives the Everlasting Godbstopper back to Wonka, and Gene Wilder starts going ape-shit and yelling at the top of his lungs that Charlie has “done it.” It was weird, but it was the heart of the film. Burton’s version has all the ape-shit but only half the heart.*

My grade: B

*Not sure if that last line makes any sense whatsoever, but I'm thinkin' it would make a damn fine Rotten Tomatoes one-liner.

The only problem with this movie is that each kid that went out went out with their stupidity and it was so predictable. The fat German kid (who amazingly knows Englisch!!!) goes out after eating chocolate AND being told not too! THEN the gum chewing girl goes out after stubbornly refusing to not eat the gum... stupidity fucks her up. THEN the next girl is once again stubborn and wants to get a squirrel and then gets attacked. Then it gets even dumber when the other kid goes into the TV portal... and guess what!? SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS TO HIM!!!! SHOCK! It's like every section in the Factory a kid says "FUCK YOU, WILLY. WHO GIVES A SHIT IF YOU OWN THIS FACTORY AND WOULD OBVIOUSLY KNOW MORE THAN ME. I AM GOING TO BE A STUBBORN IDIOT AND DISOBEY YOU, EVEN THOUGH KIDS BEFORE ME WHO DISOBEYED YOU ENDED UP FUCKING THEMSELVES UP THE ASS!!" Other than this problem it's a good movie... 8/10.

Hello, this kids are very rebellious, and don't want to follow the roles. Yes, its very predictable especially consdering that the original had basically the same plot, all the characters except Charlie suffer an awful fate.

I haven't seen the original but I still think it's stupid. Whether it was in the original/book or not.

Well if all this didn't take place the movie would've been so bland and boring. I'm glad it happened.

I can understand the kids being taken out... but it's like no creativity. It's a checklist and scene after scene of basically the same thing except different character and location...

I can understand the kids being taken out... but it's like no creativity. It's a checklist and scene after scene of basically the same thing except different character and location...

The repetition is a narrative device.

It did work better in the original, though.

I thought the chocolate factory is creative enough alone. As for the kid scenes, I thought they were all great. They were all different as well, the only thing that is the same is they all had terrible fates.

The repetition is a narrative device.

It did work better in the original, though.

It's like Tim Burton had a check list:

1. Willy Wonka shows them something (Fat German kid who somehow knows English and speaks English to the German news see's river of chocolate, stupid conceited girl who won a few awards see's this gum, stupid English-stereotyped spoiled rich girl who shouldn't exist see's a squirrel and an idiotic kid who thinks he would know more than Wonka see's the TV stuff).
2. The kids then bitch about how they could do it better or should do it.
3. They do it and something weird happens...
4. Then the Oompa Loompa's sing a song...
5. Then the kids parent bitches and moans about what happens to their idiotic kids...
6. Then Willy tells the Oompa Loompa's to help them while the parent of the stupid kid tries to help...

'Check list' being... the book?

Burton is at the height of his stylistic vision here, and the film is stunning to look at. However, Depp totally and completely misses the mark in a shocking display that essentially ruins the movie, and the Oompa Loompas bring the film to a screeching hault everytime they appear on screen. The song-and-dance bits are cinematic train wrecks that are shot and staged shockingly bad. Still, Burton IS firing on all cylinders in aleast a visual sense (it's his best looking film in over a decade), and I would recommend seeing it at some point just for that. The film is a major letdown, though, and Depp gives probably the worst performance of his career. C