Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

All right let's get this out of the way first. I still like the first Willy Wonka movie better. It's the one I grew up on and still holds up to this day.

Second, I will forever be scarred by the memory of some idiot at WonderCon this year commenting about the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie trailer. Imagine a room full of people watching the trailer and then right at the end having someone yell, "Geeeeeeene Wilderrrrrrr," with a really cocky, smug attitude as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.

Wow. Thanks buddy. I wonder how long he'd been waiting to use that line? And did he feel bad when he got practically no reaction from the crowd?

Okay, on to the new movie. I was able to tuck away the memory of the first movie in a small pocket in my brain and let this new one stand on its own legs. I thought it was great. Some of the problems that I'd heard and read critics complain about didn't really bother me. I remember reading the book back in grade school, so Wonka's dark attitude towards the misfortune of some of the kids wasn't a surprise to me. This movie is based on a children's book -- the message is good kids get rewarded and bad kids get what's coming to them. Pretty simple.

And Johnny Depp's performance worked fine - he was the quirky, detached tour guide. It's like he really wasn't the "star" of the movie, the Chocolate Factory itself was. There were amazing sets and visuals, and man, was I happy that the Oompa Loompas weren't as scary as the ones in the original movie. And all the not-Charlie kids were hilarious in their roles as greedy, overindulged, spoiled brats. The scenes with Veruca Salt make this movie worth seeing.

The only thing I was kind of "eh" on was the whole deal about Wonka's dad. This was something added by Tim Burton to help explain why Willy Wonka was the way he was. It's there for people who need to have everything spelled out for them, but not really necessary at all.

FJ