CHARLIE!!!- Page 2

[EvelynNesbit1906]

Posted: 7/14/05 at 5:02pm

I'm going tomorrow, but that's only because I'm a fan of the source material.

All of the "negative" qualities about the first film that this one reportedly "avoided" -- i.e. the "corny" songs, Veruca with the geese, and Wonka's witty aphorisms -- are qualities that I love. That said, I expect to enjoy the new film but I'm not counting on it being "better" in any respect than the first -- which is what Tim Burton insisted prior to filming. You can't improve on perfection.

[suddenlyseymour]

Posted: 7/14/05 at 5:04pm

i'll be there!! i can't freakin wait for this one =) the visuals look absolutely stunning and depp looks great

[PJ]

Posted: 7/14/05 at 5:05pm

I'll be there tomorrow evening. I'm quite excited.

[More Cowbell]

Posted: 7/14/05 at 5:16pm

The New York Post gave it 3 and a half stars, US Weekly gave it 4 stars. It's getting rave reviews.

[brdwyalicia04]

Posted: 7/14/05 at 6:40pm

I'm definately seeing it tomorrow. I have been looking forward to this! OK I'll admit one of the main reasons I want to see this is because I heart Johnny Depp. :)

[Cruel_Sandwich]

Posted: 7/14/05 at 6:41pm

You can't compare this with the Mel Stuart film. That was totally unlike the book. It was sappy and sacharine with brief moments of surrealism. This one looks more in spirit with the book: Quirky and just dark enough to be funny, not threatening. That's why Roald Dahl was, by far, the greatest children's book writer ever. EVER!!!

[SamIAm]

Posted: 7/14/05 at 7:21pm

I don't think I'll go. Saw the trailer and it looks dark and all special effectsy. And it is unclear whether Depp is playing a man or a woman from the makeup and costume...weird.

I'll take mine with Wilder, please.

[OnTheAisle]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 9:59am

I'm rethinking my earlier aversion...

Four stars from this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer:

The squirrels! The squirrels!

There are terrific moments aplenty in Tim Burton's inspired adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but the squirrels take the cake. Or the nuts.

As nut-sorting employees of confectionery king Willy Wonka, the 100(!) rodents in question perch atop stools in the Wonka factory, busily shelling and separating the good nuts from the bad. Cute, furry and intensely focused, the squirrels practically steal the movie from Johnny Depp, who adds another engagingly, um, nutty performance to his resume as the xenophobic candy baron - a recluse whose first appearance, pasty white in top hat and sunglasses, eerily brings to mind another hermetic soul, albeit one from real life and known to have invited kids over for a visit.

Depp's Wonka lives in splendid isolation within the prison-like walls of his plant, which is staffed only by an army of diminutive drones called Oompa-Loompas (all played by the fabulous Deep Roy). But after many years of solitude, Wonka has decided to open his gates to five lucky (or not-so-lucky) children, bearers of golden lottery tickets, for a tour of his mysterious facility.

And so, director Burton, with a clever screenplay (by John August) in hand, is off and running. Actually, the filmmaker was off and running with the trippy, pop-art opening credits. He has also managed - unlike Mel Stuart's 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory - to work in some backstory, including episodes from Wonka's unhappy childhood with his dentist dad (Christopher Lee) and the all-chocolate palace Wonka once built for an Indian vizier.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is easily one of Burton's most all-around successful outings. Visually, it's sublime, seamlessly mixing live action, real props and sets, and computer imagery to create an alternative world that's not quite of the here and now, but not quite of the there and then, either. (It does retain a quaint, postwar British industrial sheen.)

But where other Burton projects have floundered with wobbly scripts (Big Fish, Sleepy Hollow) or sheer meaninglessness (his remake of The Planet of the Apes), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory pulses with the late author's dark humor.

Displaying a merry disdain for bratty children and their pampering parents, but also a strong empathy for the misfits among us, Burton's movie offers four repugnant pipsqueaks (a glutton, a snob, a prima donna, and a videogame junkie) and one lone, angelic urchin. That would be Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore), a kind-hearted lad who lives in a lopsided shack with his unemployed father (Noah Taylor), his just-making-ends-meet mother (Helena Bonham Carter), and both sets of grandparents. It's quite a crowd, but there's enough love to go around.

Ultimately, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is about love - and goodness, badness and come-uppance. The young Bucket finds hope in the halls of Wonka-land, the not-so-young Wonka finally finds a family, and the rotten kids find their just deserts.

And audiences will find a mischievously inventive, surreal entertainment, one that celebrates not only Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight and Nutty Crunch Surprise but Busby Berkeley, Stanley Kubrick, the Beatles, and the outer-space acting choices of one Johnny Depp - not to mention those bushy-tailed rodents in all their bustling splendor.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 11:08am

People magazine gave it 2 stars
EW gave it a grade A

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 7/15/05 at 11:10am

83% Charlie and the Chocolate Fa...

75% Wedding Crashers

80% The Warrior

78% Memories of Murder

65% Happy Endings


All of the films opening this week are fresh on rottentomatoes.com (a very rare thing).