Written by one of the world's most famous writers of children's stories, Roald Dahl most people will be familiar with the story of a young lad called Charlie Bucket and his adventures at Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. As a child this book, written in 1964 was always a favourite of mine and like most good books it was soon turned into a film, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which first hit our screens in 1971.
I loved the film almost as much as I loved the book and despite its age it is still something that I could watch today and enjoy. I was therefore somewhat sceptical when I learned that this story was to be told again in 2005. I was even more sceptical when I discovered that this new film version would now feature some of Hollywood's biggest names, including Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka himself.
With these combined factors I made a conscious decision not to make an effort to watch the film either at the cinema or on DVD when it came out. However the film that I had managed to avoid so far was finally shown on good old fashioned terrestrial television last night and I actually found myself settling down to watch it.
I am pleased that I have now seen this film and I did actually enjoy watching it. The first thing that quickly becomes apparent however is
that this is very different from the 1971 film that starred Gene Wilder in the role of Willy Wonka, this time around a lot of artistic licence has been used to turn this into a modern film to appeal to the kids and the adults of today.
The story begins with a flashback 20 years before and a story told by Charlie's grandfather, Grandpa Joe who tells him that he once worked at that big chocolate factory and that it is the biggest and best chocolate factory in the world. He describes Willy Wonka as a genius but tells us that it was this ingenuity that eventually led to his downfall as spies infiltrated his factory and copied his ideas. One day the factory closed and it remained closed for many years until suddenly smoke was seen rising from its chimneys once again, but the mystery had always been who worked there as none of the original employees were offered their jobs back and no one is ever seen to enter or leave the building.
The basic outline of the story is in line with that of the book and earlier film and involves Willy Wonka opening up his factory to the finders of five golden tickets hidden amongst his chocolate bars. Young Charlie dreams about finding one of the golden tickets and Grandpa Joe, who is more or less bed-ridden dreams of going back to the factory one last time. Unfortunately the odds are stacked against them as the Buckets are very poor and cannot afford to buy chocolate bars and in fact Charlie only receives one bar of chocolate a year for his birthday. It would have been nice to see Charlie find one of the golden tickets on his birthday but alas this is not so. However this is a story about morals and there are plenty of twists of fate that do eventually lead to Charlie and his Grandpa being amongst the quintet of lucky visitors to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
It is at the factory we are first introduced to Depp's interpretation of Willy Wonka, wearing face make up like Marilyn Manson, a bright costume and a hat. Everything about Mr Wonka and his factory is eccentric, colourful and over the top in a sort of Wizard of Oz type way that grabs the attention of even younger kids. Everything is very bright, like an old black and white film made into early Technicolor and everything is very magical.
We also get to meet the Oompa Loompas at the factor. These are the strange creatures that work at the factory and these small, round human like characters provide us with humour throughout the film and entertain us with songs and dances. These new dance routines and songs come to us courtesy of the Director, Tim Burton and are quite unlike anything seen in the original film. We also witness several of Willy Wonka's flashbacks to his early childhood, where we see an unhappy child, son of a dentist who is denied candy and chocolate. These flashbacks again do not appear in the original book but here they add an interesting twist to the story and give us a hint of what made the eccentric character of Mr Wonka.
The one thing that I always remember from the story are the four other children that accompany Charlie on the factory tour. We have Augustus Gloop, a fat greedy German chocoholic, Mike Teavee, a child obsessed with TV violence, Violet Beauregarde an irritating child star and Veruca Salt, daughter of a wealthy businessman, who is just a spoilt little girl. Since this is a book about morals we know that each of these despicable children will get their comeuppance in one way or another and waiting for each of these moments was certainly one of the highlights of the film for me.
Of all of the original children it is the character of Mike Teavee that has been given the greatest transformation four decades on from Roald Dahl's creation. Here we see Mike obsessed with modern video and computer games rather than a child obsessed by television (as his name suggests) that Dahl created. This is just one of many examples that help bring this film alive to a new generation of viewers.
The acting from Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka is superb and some of the facial expressions that he uses are very subtle and clever. The acting of each of the children is good too, each of them developing Dahl's original creation and taking it one stop further. As Augustus, Mike, Violet and Veruca are made more loathing and grotesque than before at the other extreme we find Charlie, more caring and even more likeable than before. We also get to see more of Charlie's family, including his mother and father.
The main actors that help to pull off this 2005 adaptation are:
Willy Wonka - Johnny Depp Charlie Bucket - Freddie Highmore Grandpa Joe - David Kelly Charlie's Mother - Helena Bonham Carter Charlie's Father - Noah Taylor Violet Beauregarde - AnnaSophia Robb Veruca Salt - Julia Winter Mike Teavee - Jordan Fry Augustus Gloop - Philip Wiegratz
Overall I was surprised to enjoy this film and I am thankful that they did not just remake the original film with modern day actors.
Released - 2005 Running time - 115 minutes Certification - PG (for mild language and quirky humour)
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Family - Director: Sarah Ball - Original Language: English - Classification: Universal - Starring: Neil Morrissey, Noddy Holder, Alison Steadman, Stephen Tompkinson, Chris Evans, Elton John, Bob The Builder
Mar 30th, 2008
exceptional by (2%):
very helpful by (98%):
