Chocolate Thunder
Those of you in the Cities (or nearby) know that it's been uncomfortably hot and muggy, and you also know that we don't have air conditioning. There's been a lot of sleeping in the near-buff, a lot of wedging fans in windows, and, this morning, a torrential thunderstorm -- which promised to leave things even muggier. So this afternoon, a movie sounded like a good idea. We went to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".It's a curious problem: how do you make "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" without drawing comparisons to the much-loved "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"? The answer, I suppose, is that you can't. You make it as different as you can, of course -- and you fill it with those incredible Tim Burton visuals -- but ultimately, you have to sit down and think about the two together.
On balance, I think I enjoyed this version more. But it was the little things that tipped the scale.
Technology has made the Oompa Loompa songs a whole lot more bearable, as has Danny Elfman (and a return to the words of Roald Dahl). Charlie and the supporting cast were, on the whole, superior. On the other hand, the necessity of cleaving closely to the book meant that the other four children on the factory tour were remarkably similar -- sometimes eerily similar -- to their earlier counterparts.
Again, dedication to the original source material made some scenes repetitive, as well -- notably the mixing room and the shrinking corridor outside of it. Not that there was anything wrong with the scene; it was just that I'd seen it all before -- at least, until the Esther Williams number in the chocolate river. That was new.
The ultimate question, of course, is: who's the better Willy Wonka? And my answer, of course, is: both of them. Depp was frighteningly good, as always: funny and creepy, and the script has given him a backstory and motivations that Gene Wilder's interpretation lacked at a surface level. On the other hand, Wilder's characterization exuded intelligence and wit, and, in the end, incredible warmth, much of which was lacking in Depp. Depp's Wonka didn't seem capable of inventing everything around him, even as Wilder's Wonka lacked any clear reason to do so.
Wilder's Wonka wouldn't have worked in this film, just as Depp's wouldn't have worked in the first version. Both were diamonds; this one had the better setting. End of story. I give it a 91, plus two extra points for the squirrel scene.
posted by MeanMrMustard @ 7:43 PM
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