Your hero? The man says to me, winking as he takes our tickets. I can't work out what he's implying - that I've loved the book and its writer ever since I first learned to read, or that I'm only going to see this film because Johnny Depp is in it and I'm with my girlfriend. Obviously it's the former, plus Mssr. Depp is consistently good in films and it's a Tim Burton film, so will probably have excellent music and look brilliant.
Trademark Burton machinery starts us off, with Danny Elfman's music carrying us through the factory (the man is a musical genius). The film is full of this, childlike, comic-book and extremely well composedshots. On occasion the CGI gets a bit too carried away but on the whole it is pretty restrained and doesn't distract from the story.
I used to have the tapes with Roald Dahl himself reading the book. His gentle, slightly scarey voice is deeply ingrained in my CATCF psyche and I am gratified that many familiar lines are kept in this version of the film. Johnny Depp's Wonka speaks like the cast of Buffy, presumably to appeal to the young American generation, but making him appear extremely camp. He just about pulls it off with some hilarious jokes and brilliant ways of dealing with precocious children. The scripting and casting is pretty good with lots of comedy for all ages, the annoying children are very annoying and the parents are perfectly useless.
Now then. On to the question everyone's been asking themselves: Are the Oompa Loompas orange with green hair? Are their songs any good? Of course not. You can't have dwarves in films anymore, it's not PC! Elements of The Nightmare Before Christmas' songs creep into Mike TV's song, a glam rock pastiche that is half alright. The best song is the camp disco funk for Violet Beuregarde and the worst is the 70's Westlife Veruca Salt disaster.
There are elements here that aren't in the original tale, and original things that didn't make it into the other film. I won't give away any spoilers, but some are good although I thought the ending was pretty weak, leaving no room for a Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator film, which I actually preferred when I was younger.
The man winks at me again on the way out. Enjoy yourself? He says, I'm still trying to recognise him, maybe he wants me to become his apprentice so I can be the man who holds the bin bag at the end of films. I can't work out what he's implying, but I say, yeah, it was wicked and we emerge blinking into the half-light of reality, with smiles on our faces.
