Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a film very close to my heart. No matter how many times I watch Wonka, I still feel amazed, excited and heart-warmed by its elegance and ambition. Roald Dahl’s story of Charlie Bucket is of course familiar to everyone who didn’t spend their childhood sat in a corner eating crayons, and the charming children’s book is even more imaginative on the big screen. A superb cast of children and adults, led by the witty and whimsical Gene Wilder, adventure through impeccable set pieces in a musical masterpiece of family entertainment. A chocolate riverboat ride, singing Oompa Loompas, fizzy lifting drinks, and everlasting gobstoppers are but a few highlights in an exceptionally shot film that leaves children in awe and adults in stitches.
Then in 2005 came Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a film that upon leaving made me want to go to court and point out on a doll of Gene Wilder exactly where Tim Burton ruined my childhood. All the subtlety and irony of the previous film was lost. The singing Willy Wonka with a twinkle in his eye became a cold and xenophobic Johnny Depp, whose every line was delivered like Michael Jackson giving a guided tour of Neverland. The Oompa Loompas and beautifully designed sets were replaced with a sickly smorgasbord of CGI. The characters ceased to be quirky and annoying eccentrics, and instead are just a detestable bunch of cretins. Perhaps worst of all, Christopher Lee is roped in to play Wonka’s dad in a needless back-story, probably because someone dared to tell Burton that he couldn’t have Saruman playing Grandpa Joe. Pretty much every aspect of the remake degraded the original. Charlie is a bad egg that needs to be dropped into the incinerator and forgotten about.
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