Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Review by Jason Gaston

I try to go into movies with an open mind, but doing that with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a job, let me tell you. I grew up watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I knew the songs, knew dialogue by heart, and for the longest time I really thought that all candy factories had a big room full of edible candy plants and chocolate waterfalls. After my fifth year of high school, I found out that wasn't exactly true, but Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory had burrowed its little claws into my heart and nothing short of a rib saw was going to get it out.

Naturally, when I learned of and saw the adverts for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I was raging on the inside. How dare Tim Burton and Johnny Depp rape my childhood memories with a new version of this movie? Sure, I was being all nice on the outside saying that I wouldn't pass judgment until I saw the movie, but on the inside, I was wondering what Tim Burton's blood would taste like as it gushed between my teeth.

Well, Mr. Burton, I'm here with hat in hand ready to eat my words. Not only is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a great movie in its own right... a completely separate entity from the Gene Wilder classic, but it's also a quirky, strange, bizarre, and completely hilarious trip into insanity.

I loved this movie.

Willy Wonka is a man of mystery. He's got a huge chocolate factory that no one is allowed into and everyone wants to know what's inside. So, when Wonka puts five golden tickets into five chocolate bars that get sent all around the world, the lucky finders of those tickets gets to go inside the factory... and one lucky winner will get a prize that is described as 'amazing.'

Sure, if you've seen the original film, you pretty much know it all... and yet, you won't. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a movie that makes a familiar story new and fresh again and always seems to surprise at every turn. This is the Tim Burton we remember from Beetlejuice, Batman, and Edward Scissorhands. This is the Tim Burton I hoped was coming back when I saw Big Fish.

Good God, Tim, it's awesome to have you back.

I'm not kidding, kids, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is probably the funniest movie I've seen all year. Johnny Depp is a perfect fit to play this new version of Willy Wonka. He's childlike and devious, surprising and sarcastic. He plays this role with such joy that it becomes contagious and you can't help but smile. At the same time, he's bizarre to the point of hilarity. Depp is an awesome actor. He could probably do mime of a camel taking a dump and it would be awesome.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a giddy celebration of the absurd. It's funny, touching, and has Tim Burton's fingerprints all over it so that it looks like some kind of industrial gothic fairy tale.

Put all your doubts aside, Wonka fans. This new take on Willy Wonka doesn't take anything away from the old movie... in fact, I see them as two separate movies all together. Both coexisting peacefully.

If I knew six months ago what I would be saying now, I probably would have kicked my own ass, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an amazing and hilarious movie.