Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

It’s a strange movie. It’s not bad, exactly; it has a lot of good content; but it’s strange. It’s a lot like The Wizard of Oz, even to the color scheme. Just so you know, my review does contain spoilers: I couldn’t talk about it sensibly otherwise. Sorry.

Johnny Depp plays Willy Wonka, the owner of the chocolate factory. Remember the part in Pirates where he asked Will Turner how far he’d go for Elizabeth, and Will said he’d die for her, and Depp replied, “oh, good”? That’s sort of how he was for Chocolate Factory, only more so. Kindness to others was not his prevailing virtue. He also has a high voice, effeminate hair, and pale makeup, so I probably wouldn’t have recognized Depp if I hadn’t known it was him. So that was not so great.

Wonka’s factory is run by the Oompa Loompas, a tribe of munchkins who came from the jungle to eat cocoa beans instead of (admittedly disgusting) green caterpillars. Wonka’s jungle travels in which he discovered them were his most manly parts of the movie, but the Oompa Loompa language itself tended towards middle-school humor. They are musical munchkins. Every time someone disappeared from the tour, they put on an elaborate song and dance number (rather like “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead,” only with more cultural references). The dances were supposed to be funny. They tended to bewilder me. Or weird me out. I think I just don’t quite get Tim Burton’s sense of humor, which is probably good.

Christopher Lee plays Wonka’s father. He was a being with no existence in the book, but he works in the movie. At least, he adds (moderately obvious and unimaginative) depth and motivation to Wonka’s wonky character. In addition to being a great Saruman and Count Dooku, he’s also a great evil dentist. Seriously! He did well with what he had to work with. There’s a reunion scene at the end. “I haven’t seen bicuspids like this since…WILLY?” “Dad!” “You haven’t flossed since you left?” “Not once.”

On the other hand, the movie did some excellent things. Charlie Bucket’s family is very poor, but they love each other and his parents both work hard, his dad to support the family and his mom to keep the household running. (The casting job on the Bucket family, all seven of them, was phenomenal. Actually, most of the casting was really good.) I was surprised how nonfeminist the movie was, in that and other regards. It was a major theme that Family is Good and Selfishness is Bad—even more so than Harry Potter, actually. Charlie at the end passed up riches beyond his wildest dreams to stay with his family.

It was also a big theme that obeying your parents is good, even if you don’t understand. Charlie had a line to Wonka about how “they love you and want the best for you.” Every one of the frightful four children had parents who spoiled them. The Oompa Loompas knew perfectly well whose fault it was, and sang so.

I loved the way the movie skewered four vices. Everyone had a fitting end for his sins, rather like Dante’s Hell. :-D

The first to go was a glutton, plain and simple. He tried to eat what wasn’t his, fell into the chocolate river and was sucked up into a factory UFO, and that was that.

The second was your feminazi go-conquer-the-world type of girl, with her mother exactly the same. ::shudder:: She was a champion gum-chewer and chewing the wrong gum was her downfall. Wonka actually went to some effort to save her from herself (he generally didn’t), but she, knowing better of course, turned herself into a blueberry.

The third was a prim and spoiled young lady, who insisted on her own way and got sent down the garbage chute for her pains. Her doting father followed her: a squirrel pushed him in.

The fourth boy was a combination math whiz and video game addict. He was not as consistent a character, actually; I think they tried to do more with him than was possible. He was incredible at puzzles, math, and technology, and also liked violent video games. He’s the sort of boy who stomps on pumpkins for no reason but destruction. His dad halfheartedly tried to dissuade him, but was too much of a wimp to give an actual order or enforce it if he did. The Oompa Loompas sang that TV rots your brain, but it was so manifestly not true in this boy’s life, that one fell rather flat. His foul character was certainly bad, but they didn’t denounce it very convincingly. It should also be pointed out that bashing TV using the medium of cinema is perhaps not the most consistent.

The movie was, in short, of ambivalent quality. There were some funny parts, and some good parts, and some gross parts (mostly the caterpillars), and some parts that fell hopelessly flat. At least there was no love story to “fall on its face and skin its nose.”