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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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#1 of 1 Posted 7/11/05 11:26 PM

From Harveycritic Posts 1637 Last Jan-30
To All [Msg # 19669.1 ]

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Warner Bros
Grade: A-
Directed by: Tim Burton
Written by: John August, book by Roald Dahl
Cast: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena
Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Missi Pyle, James Fox
Screened at: Loews Lincoln Sq., NYC, 7/11/05

Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which sticks pretty close to Roald Dahl’s hugely popular novel, might not become a classic like “The Wizard of Oz” nor will any of the squirrels in “Charlie” become a household name like Toto. Nonetheless, the combination of Tim Burton’s signature atmospherics (“Beetlejuice,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Sleepy Hollow”) and the remarkably plastic talents of Johnny Depp in the role of the world’s most famous, albeit cloistered, chocolatier make this movie an absolute delight from start to finish. “Charlie” will wow the target audience of youngsters, particularly for those lucky enough to see it on the IMAX screen, and should gratify, nay enchant, any grown-up who was ever a kid. (Lamentably, many never were.)

Burton comes back winningly after his less-than-felicitous “Mars Attacks” to create a parallel universe drenched in wet, delicious chocolate–in pools, in waterfalls, and on the assembly lines, all ending up throughout the world as Willy Wonka bars. Those critics who were not sanguine about Mel Stuart’s 1971 version of Dahl’s novel, “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” did not care for the cruel edge possessed by Gene Wilder as the title character. This edge of sarcasm in the marvelous Johnny Depp, however, his W.C.Fields-like antipathy toward spoiled brats, is welcome this time around. Without that edge, his Willy Wonka would be simply eccentric, more like a caricature than a real person. It’s refreshing, then, to watch four of the five children who visit his giant factory given a punitive lesson they’ll probably forget in a week or two, but a lesson nevertheless.

Though scripter John August’s cinematic re-imagining of the Dahl classic puts the title character Charlie, in second place to Wonka, it takes little time for the audience to realize that Charlie is the kind of boy they wish they had. Freddie Highmore, in the title role, exudes a love for family that today comes across so obsolete that you don’t wonder that the entire story is a fable.

Though the time of the action is indefinite–universal we might say–Charlie is depicted in a Dickensian scene in a dilapidated shack somewhere in London. The humble abode houses his dad, Mr. Bucket (Noah Taylor), the breadwinner who can barely make ends meet in his job screwing the caps on tubes of toothpaste. Yet dad can keep a number of people in watery cabbage soup; his wife (Helena Bonham Carter), Grandpa Joe (David Kelly), and a few senior citizens who fit snugly but happily into one bed which they appear never to leave except when soup’s on.

When Charlie and four others of about his age win a contest by finding golden tickets in Wonka chocolate bars, Charlie chooses his gramps for an escort-chaperone and joins the others inside the huge chocolate-making plant. While Charlie comes right out of a Norma Rockwell painting, the others are obnoxious, each in his or her own way. Gluttonous August Gloop (Philip Wiegratz) has a face perpetually covered with candy; Veruca Salt (Julia Winter) is the ultimate spoiled brat who demands an eve-increasing number of consumer goods from her rich father (James Fox); Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb) is a compulsive trophy-winner, excelling in everything from martial arts to gum-chewing; Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry) is obsessed with violent vid-games and looks at the others as though they are ####.

When Johnny Depp appears twenty minutes of so into the proceedings, we catch right off that his character, Wonka, is not bonkers but is mighty eccentric. Having never left his factory once he cut the ribbon, he appears throughout in a dinner coat with a high, black silk hat and occasionally with a huge pair of shades which he uses to avoid being blinded by one of the bright factory rooms. In his first mental flashback, he revisits his father (Christopher Lee), a dentist who is so against cavity-producing candy that he has wired his child’s jaw shut; hence the boy’s later obsession with chocolate. (There’s a moral lesson about repression there, parents. Are you listening?) As Wonka leads the group on the kind of tour we wish we had back in elementary school when we visited the dull firehouse, we’re taken into a series of distinct rooms, where photographer Philippe Rousselot’s lenses virtually dance. A chocolate river forms a boundary between a field of grass and hills made of fudge. In one astonishing room, a group of one hundred trained squirrels pick nuts apart from their shells for use in Wonka’s chocolate bars. (A number of trained squirrels were actually used in this scene.) The movie breaks into musical-comedy mode when the Oompa Loompas , who work on various tasks, turn into a chorus–forming a counterpoint to Danny Elfman’s musical score. The Oompas, whom Charlie imported from a strangely exotic country, are miniatures, each wearing a different outfit, each skit actually performed by a single fellow, Deep Roy. As each scuzzy kid is undone by his or her vile character trait, director Burton briefly spoofs a series of Hollywood classics, including “2001,” anything in which Esther Williams appeared, and Busby Berkeley pics. The most enthralling gadget of all is a glass elevator that swiftly goes up, down and sideways, in one surrealistic thrust sending its tourists clear up to the clouds.

The forty-two year old Depp once again shines in a role not alike his others in edgy, indie-type works like “Edward Scissorhands” and “Ed Wood,” and mainstream fare like “Platoon” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Always the eccentric, the Kentucky-born actor now enjoys a role that has his emotions ranging from the benign and charitable to the grouchy and hostile. If “The Wizard of Oz” was essential viewing for the youths of the thirties, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” is required fare for the new generation.

Rated PG. 110 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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