Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
July 15, 2005
Warner Bros.
Children's, Musical, Fantasy
DVD
C

I don't think it's just that I'm Gen X is the reason why I enjoy this less than the 1971 Gene Wilder version.  I can see flaws in the earlier version and I would argue that there are three ways that this is actually an improvement.  The songs, taking Roald Dahl's original verse and pairing with a wide variety of styles (including disco!), are much better here.  Related to that, I prefer Tim Burton's Oompa-Loompas, including the device of them all being played by one man (through the magic of CGI).  Also, Charlie's family (including Burton's wife Helena Bonham Carter as Charlie's mum) is generally more likable here.  (Although the one dotty grandmother is mildly annoying.)

However, it is with Willy Wonka and his home life that Burton goes seriously awry.  Wilder played Wonka with a twinkle in his eye but he was also genuinely scary at some points.  Johnny Depp plays Wonka as both creepy and insecure, and we get several back-story flashbacks to his childhood with his candy-hating father.  Ten years ago, I found this to be psychobabbling derailment, and my opinion hasn't changed.  Can't Wonka just be inexplicably weird, rather than someone who just needs love and acceptance?

Also, with the exception of Freddie Highmore who's quite good as Charlie (and would do a bunch of other adaptations of children's books, none of which I own, but some of which I've seen), none of the children are as good as the '71 cast.  The parents are mostly forgettable, although Missi Pyle as Mrs. Beauregarde gives it her usual perky/crazy touch.  As for the look of the film, I'd say the movies are about equally good.

Nayef Rashed, under the name Adam Hussein, was Mohamad the Camel Seller in Ishtar and here appears as a Moroccan Market Vendor.  Nitin Ganatra, who was so memorable as Bride & Prejudice's Mr. Kohli, has a much smaller role here as Prince Pondicherry.

There are some minor Harry Potter connections.  Harry Taylor, who's the Station Guard in the first two movies, appears briefly as Mr. Gloop.  Lucy-Anne Brooks is a Factory Worker here and would soon be a Beauxbaton Student in Goblet of Fire.  Ray Donn had very small roles in both Bridget Jones movies, is a policeman here, and would be a Ministry of Magic Panel Member in Order of the Phoenix.  Brigitte Millar, who's a Journalist here, would be Emmeline Vance in Order of the Phoenix.  Tony Kirwood, who's Finckelgruber, would be a Death Eater in both parts of Deathly Hallows.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
June 30, 1971
Paramount
Children's, Musical, Fantasy
VHS
B-

Does it seem weird that I don't exactly know what I think of this movie?  I mean, I grew up with it, and the book it's based on.  (My review: http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/07/charlie-and-chocolate-factory.html.)  Let's start with Willy Wonka, since the title was changed for the movie adaptation (adapted by Dahl himself, although he hated the subsequent rewrite).  Gene Wilder manages to be both charming and creepy.  (Not Johnny Depp level creepy, but that's a later discussion.)  All of the children misbehave, even our hero Charlie, although he at least atones for it.  The chocolate manufacturing plant is at once an awesome little amusement park and a potential death factory*, with an acid-trip boat ride.  The songs are either classic ("Candy Man," "Pure Imagination"), or they're stupid but catchy (the Oompa-Loompa songs), or they're filled with unwieldy Anthony Newley rhymes ("Cheer Up, Charlie," "I Want It Now, etc.).  The humor is either sly (many of Wonka's lines, the teacher's riffs) or pathetic (many of Grandpa Joe's lines).  Speaking of Grampa J, I think he's malingering.  He (along with the other three grandparents) has apparently been bedridden for twenty years, and yet the local news vendor knows him and GJ can somehow sneak tobacco and chocolate into the house.

Anyway, I'm going with my default grade, B-.  The movie could be better, it could be worse.  It's entertaining but not amazing.

Oompa Loompa Rusty Goffe would play two different goblins in Harry Potter movies.  Little person Frank Delfino plays an auctioneer rather than an Oompa Loompa; he was in Please Don't Eat the Daisies, and would go on to play a Kaplutian on The Brady Bunch.  And, no, I don't know why the O-Ls are orange.


*Unlike in the book, we never actually see the bad kids recover.

Before tragedy struck

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
December 18, 1968
Warfield
Musical, Children's, Fantasy, Historical
VHS
B-

Speaking of movies I grew up with....But this one is, although a childhood favorite, something that I criticized, even as a child.  The things that bothered me then are the ones that bother me now: almost everything involving Vulgaria and the Vulgarians, except for the awesome castle (mad King Ludwig's Neuschwanstein).  The first roughly one hour of the movie is delightful (details below), but then Mr. Potts starts telling a story about the Baron of Vulgaria coveting their car.  We get unfunny spies, an unfunny baron who hates his wife to the point of unsuccessfully but repeatedly attempting her murder, unfunny courtiers, and a possibly creepier than intended "child-catcher."  And yet, that last hour or so is bearable because it still has some good songs.

As a child and now, I would've been quite content just hanging out with the Potts family and their new friend Truly Scrumptious.  Heck, I would've loved to have been Jemima Potts when I was a kid.  She's got a nice twin brother, a nice sheepdog, an eccentric but doting inventor father who doesn't care if she skips school, an eccentric but doting grandfather who reads aloud with a great voice ("the big brown bear came lolloping over the hill") and tells Groucho Marx jokes, a car that's fun to play in even before her dad turns it into a phantasmorgical machine, a nice old house with a windmill, beautiful English countryside where it apparently only rains at night, and now this nice, rich, pretty lady who will probably be her new mum.  Jemima and Jeremy seem to spend most of their time outside the "fantasy" sequence laughing.  Then they go to Vulgaria and become idiots, falling for the child-catcher's trick and yapping like puppies.

It's strange, because from what I recall of the Ian Fleming novel, the kids are sharp and get themselves out of a jam.  Of course, the script, co-written by Roald Dahl, bears little resemblance to the novel.  Oddly enough, it is a bit like James Bond movies, with not only Albert Broccoli and Goldfinger involved, but some other points of connection.  Too bad the spies couldn't have been a 1910s version of Bond minions, rather than the forgettable slapstickers that they are.

The movie does resemble the Mary Poppins movie, with Sherman Brothers songs that are surprisingly good (even the Baron and Baroness duet, and I don't mind that the title song is sung four times, because it's catchy), and of course Van Dyke as the male lead, although this time he makes absolutely no attempt at a British accent.  (Poor Benny Hill and the other Vulgarians are saddled with vaguely German accents.)  Like I said, I think that first hour is more entertaining to kids.  As an adult, I noticed that the Caractacus/Truly romance is really rushed, especially since it turns out that her thinking and singing of him as a "lovely, lonely man" is entirely part of his story, although when they return to reality, she doesn't think the idea of them getting married is ridiculous.  He clearly has issues about women-- since he also made up the Baron & Baroness marriage-- but we do see he's good with his children, if not terribly practical.  By the way, he and Lionel Jeffries were both 42 at this point, Van Dyke actually six months older than "Grandpa."

Director and co-writer Ken Hughes would go on to direct Sextette, which is a more definitively bad movie musical.  Richard Wattis, who plays the male secretary at the sweet factory, was Seton in The Importance of Being Earnest.  Phil Collins, then 17, plays a Vulgarian child, although he'd been an onscreen teen in the audience of A Hard Day's Night.  Anna Quayle was Minnie in that and is the baroness here.  Bernard Spear, who's the second spy, would be a tailor in Yentl.

"Deddy, what do you say we pretend we don't see the pirate ship and just head to London?"