Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Director: Tim Burton
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 2.0
Gothic adaptation of the Roald Dahl children's novel about a wealthy candy maker with Daddy issues (Johnny Depp) who invites kids to his factory to teach them lessons about their own excess - since there isn't much to the story, it's more or less a collection of very nice set pieces. Depp is fantastic as the man-child - ignore the naysayers: he makes what there is of this 'movie' - but all the scenes in which the children are dispatched because they are over privileged and undisciplined quickly become redundant (the Freudian interpretation has Willy Wonka punishing the kids because of his own lack of a liberal, pro-candy father as a lad). Gets a few good gags out of making you sick (Depp licking a bug-covered machete, little Wonka's face wrapped in some dental appliance designed by H. R. Giger) and scores oodles of points for weirdness (considering it's Burton, this is expected), but otherwise it's paper thin. If you never read any books by Dahl as a youngin', shame on you and everybody that looks like you; if you don't realize by now that Missi Pyle is a cinematic treasure you haven't been paying enough attention.
