The film starts out with ominous Tim Burton imagery accompanied by ominous Danny Elfman music, but we’re soon seeing scads of chocolate pouring out of large mechanical tubes onto large trays and being airlifted by small balloons. Why? Five golden tickets being wrapped into five chocolate bars sets the plot in motion.
Eventually we pan back up into the sky and see that Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory is situated in a pale, generic town, made moreso by a steady snowfall more flaky than fluffy. In the middle of town sits a very crooked little house in the middle of what looks to be a trash dump. The house is inhabited by the Buckets: the boy Charlie (Freddie Highmore), his parents (Helena Bonham Carter and Noah Taylor), and his four invalid grandparents (David Kelley, Liz Smith, Eileen Essell, and David Morris). While director Burton and his screenwriter (John August) give the parents plenty of earnest, supportive scenes, they still take a back seat to the snappy dialogue of the grands, particularly Morris as Grandpa George.
Charlie, of course, finds the final golden ticket and takes his Grandpa Joe (Kelley) along for the tour of Wonka’s factory. At the entrance we get a taste of Willy Wonka’s (and Burton’s) bizarre taste for entertainment via a puppet show that starts on fire. The other four contest winners and their parents say little while Charlie and his grandpa laugh in delight. Once inside, though, it’s difficult not to compare this film to the 1971 version. Most of the same things happen, although spoiled brat Veruca Salt (Julie Winter) encounters crazed squirrels (true to Raold Dahl’s book) rather than large geese.
Burton’s storytelling technique is more nonverbal than in typical kids’ movies, so while Dahl’s cynicism permeates, so does a certain 21st century indifference on the kids’ part. All of the other kids (Veruca, as played by Winter, Violet Beauregarde played by Annasophia Robb, Augustus Gloop played by Philip Wiegratz, and particularly Mike Teavee played by Jordan Fry) are nastier than their 1971 counterparts, reflecting the higher consumer-awareness of kids in 2005. Only one of the parents is given much to do (Missi Pyle as Violet’s aging cheerleader mom), emphasizing Wonka’s distaste for parents even alongside rude children. We find out why Wonka behaves this way through a series of flashbacks in which we meet an orthodontically-helmeted young Willy (Blair Dunlop) and his controlling dentist father (Christopher Lee). This subplot is not from Dahl’s book, but helps to underscore the psychology of the story, obviously of great interest to Burton and Depp.
There is also a flashback to Wonka in a jungle where he first meets the Oompa Loompas (all played in magnificent CGI duplication by Deep Roy). Roy and his doppelgangers appear throughout the film performing any number of odd jobs, but also singing the moral lessons (straight from Dahl’s book) to be learned as each child misbehaves enough to be taken off the factory tour. Each song is presented in a different, modern musical style (although rap is thankfully avoided), culminating in a delicious heavy metal sendup with Roy playing all the members of a long-haired, jumpsuited rock band.
Overall, Burton has successfully reinvented a wonderful story, both more faithful and less faithful to its source, and emphasizing a wholesome message (the need for family) without preaching or getting too dark (as in, say, the recent Lemony Snicket film). Depp scores another triumph of characterization – you’ve never met anyone quite like this overgrown boy of a Master Candyman. The supporting cast is given plenty of funny dialogue, even while the visuals tell half the story. Check out this treat while it’s on the big screen this summer.
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