My Movie Review on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) (Reconstructed & Re-Analyzed) · 2:50pm Last Sunday
This is a modified version of the review I made on “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)”, which was posted in 2020.
As with my reviews of “Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island” and “The Lion King (2019)”, my reconstructed analysis for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” showcases many of my initial thoughts on the film combined with the statements from my re-analyzing of it. I didn’t give it a rewatch in preparation, but from memory alone, it was easy to remember my first time checking out the movie.
Take a look:
Greetings, my friends.
This is your jolly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.
Today, following my analysis on "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", I'm gonna give you guys my take of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".
Considering that the premise is pretty much the same as the last movie, I hardly think giving a rundown of it is necessary.
I’d like to be honest, I had never seen this film until just this morning after renting it on iTunes 20 days ago. Although, I read many interesting things about the movie, such as how enthusiastic the family of Roald Dahl were to have Tim Burton onboard as director in contrast to others that were previously courted for the position, such as Rob Minkoff. The prime reasons I wanted to see this movie were because of Johnny Depp, as he is and always will be one of my favorite actors, and because I wanted to make a comparison with it and the film from 1971.
Sadly, I didn’t think this movie was as enjoyable as the previous movie. I mean, it was definitely interesting, but it wasn’t something I wanted to go running to the store for afterwards.
Among the things I found myself having mixed opinions about were the direction by Tim Burton and the screenplay by John August.
On the positive side of it, I could tell that Burton and August were obviously quite passionate about the project. When it came to creating the film as a faithful adaption to the book with touches of a filmmaker’s creative flair on the side, the two of them definitely didn’t mess around. The film’s newly-found exploration on Willy Wonka was especially fascinating, and so were the themes it had about family and love.
However, Burton’s direction overall seemed to make everything creepy and weird more than anything else, and despite its efforts to be as emotionally compelling as possible...the film wasn’t the most soul-tugging. The comedy it had wasn’t very great either, largely because the jokes seemed rather flatly executed. Along with that, the film felt too straightforward and quick in many ways, and it hardly carried much complexity despite the efforts of the filmmakers.
Outside of this, the film carried something that ultimately served as a big blunder to the story:
In "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", Charlie's father wasn't included and was mentioned to be dead. In this movie, though, Charlie's father is present and he works for a toothpaste company. I get that the filmmakers were obviously wanting to stick closely to the book, but in all honesty...including him was a terrible mistake. The absence of the father in "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", in my opinion, added more weight to the struggles that Charlie and his family were going through in the film and helped me sympathize for them. In "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", though, that wasn't the case because of the presence of Charlie's father and the fact that he clearly had a steady job to work with.
Along with this, the acting, characters, and character development were generally a mixed bag.
When it comes to the title character himself, there are many things I’d like to say about him. Sadly, though, most of my statements about the character are generally negative. Compared to the version from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, the version in this movie was one-dimensional at the most. He had all the qualities needed to be instantly lovable, but he was completely lacking in character development and seemed to be…too perfect. But, at least Freddie Highmore did an awesome job portraying the part.
Aside from that, Johnny Depp’s performance as Willy Wonka was polarizing.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Johnny Depp. He’s one of my all-time favorite actors. But, his performance as Willy Wonka seemed surprisingly exaggerated & cringy. The main brightsides to his portrayal were that he successfully made his portrayal & characterization of Willy Wonka completely different & unique from Gene Wilder’s version, and he gave the character an added sense of something extraordinarily human. Other than that, though, something about Depp’s performance didn’t seem as natural or relaxed compared to other characters he portrayed. At least Willy Wonka himself had decent character development, I’ll give it that.
As for the supporting performers and characters, they were decent at the most. Each of the actors fit their parts like a glove and gave them great personality, with David Kelly’s portrayal of Grandpa Joe being a particular standout. However, the characters themselves didn’t stick with me compared to their 1971 counterparts, and the new ones weren’t the most memorable additions to the story.
Finally, Danny Elfman’s music for this movie wasn’t the most outstanding he ever created. In fact, it was perhaps the worst film score of his entire career!
I liked that Elfman was at least trying his best, and he did a brilliant job at getting emotionally invested. But, in contrast to many of his other works, such as Sam Raimi’s first and second Spider-Man films, Elfman’s music didn’t seem to carry enough resonance, and it felt like he was hardly pushing the envelope. Not to mention the melodies were largely forgettable, and every time I try thinking back on what Elfman’s score was like, I can’t help but think that his melodies sounded like they were done by an amateur from outer space! The songs sung by the Oompa-Loompas and “Wonka’s Welcome Song” were particularly annoying, mainly because of how irritating the singing sounded and how off-tune the melodies were.
In the end, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” turned out to be a movie that I hoped I’d enjoy more than anything, but found to not be as great as I expected it to be. Especially compared to “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. It’s intriguing, and the ambitions were clearly there, but it was too flawed & far from fun.
So, I rate “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” two out of five stars.
But there are plenty of double income families everywhere who are struggling financially despite having two sources of income. It's not that unbelievable.
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All the same, the presence of Charlie's father, and the fact that he had a steady job, made it hard for me to sympathize for the family in this movie. As well as to actually feel their struggles.