Z/Web

Author: Roald Dahl (book)

Director: Tim Burton

The book is one of my favorites (Dahl’s my favorite author) and I love Tim Burton’s quirky films; but I wasn’t sure about this going in. The casting of Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka struck me as odd, and though he did a good job, in the end he’s just too youthful for such a character. It didn’t fit in well with the plot. My mom got strange Michael Jackson vibes from him and didn’t like him. I didn’t experience that but I can see where that might show up (Wonka and Jackson share many similar encentricies and both are adult children). Except for a few negative things about Wonka, however, I really liked the film better than the

This film is both marvelous and terrible; the producers take some horrible liberties with the story (adding in a strange lurking villain that is so stereotypical as to almost ruin the film) and make it a musical (huh?). There are a few great songs (“Candy Man”), but there are also several duds, and the musical aspect feels awkward and destroys all realism of the story. The casting is decent; Gene Wilder’s happy-go-lucky Wonka is great until the odd ending (anger and confrontation is so not Wonka). The strange deviations of the script seem pointless and contrived. One aspect I liked better than the