Beauty ideal

Take me to your leader

I don't remember a lot of the 1971 "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" but I do remember this: I actually liked Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. Johnny Depp, an actor I admire very much, makes Wonka into an unapproachable misfit who has an uncanny resemblence (intended or not) to Michael Jackson. Perhaps I am seeing this through an adult's eyes and especially given the recent Jackson weirdness in the courts but when I sat through Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" I felt ill.

Director Tim Burton, as usual, has created a trademark series of wacky sets, larger-than-life props. We've seen it all before from "Batman", "Sleepy Hollow", "Big Fish". All these films have improbabilities, plenty of irony and a pleasant feeling of having sat through a film where the vision was carefully construction from beginning to end. However, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" shares something with these films that now will probably make me want to avoid Burton until he changes his style. That is, a lack of grounding. Burton makes big, beautiful fairy tales. That may be perfect for the characters in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" but for me I'm left with a sense of ennui. There's nothing for me here.

""Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" starts off well. Charlie Bucket, a boy with a good soul, lives in a ramschackle house with two sets of grandparents and his parents (Freddie Highmore and Helena Bonham Carter) scraping by a living in a town where the major employer, the Chocolate Factory, has been shut for decades. Despite this, Charie is cheerful; his only luxury is an annual gift of a Willy Wonka chocolate bar. This year, after years of reclusiveness, Willy Wonka announces that five children around the world who find a golden ticket in one of his chocolate bars will be allowed to visit his factory; the only outsiders to see inside since the plant shuttered.

The scenes introducing the first four children - all unworthies because of character flaws - are amusing. Like Burton's sets, the children are all cast perfectly. The only one I remember from the original film - Augustus Gloop - ("Augustus Gloop, Augustus Gloop! Dirty stinking nincompoop") has a doll-like complexion and is round like a barrel. Another girl is a spoiled rich kid with an impeccable upper class twit accent. Two characters seem to have been added (or upgraded) for modern sensibilities. One is an overcompetitive girl in a tracksuit. Another is a game nerd who has been moulded into a rude, obnoxious know-it-all. Only cheerful Charlie Buckett is at all sympathetic.

One of the problems with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is that once they get to the factory, the story ceases to be about Charlie and more about how he passively watches while the other children get their commupance. We are supposed to look in awe at the weirdness and other- worldliness of Willy Wonka's world. What can I say? I'm not a kid anymore. Big colourful sets don't impress me. What's more, the Oompa Loompas - dwarfs with the same wrinkled brown face - are creepy as hell. I wanted to smile when they began their song and dance routines but they tired me out. Man, I'm starting to sound like Grandpa Simpson.

The root of my lack of connection with "Charlie" is that I found Willy Wonka not appealing at all. I know he is supposed to be off-putting - this is why Charlie is there, to bring him back into our world. Depp's performance is not just off-putting, it is on a different planet. Whereas Wilder's Wonka himself had an element of childishness, Depp's Wonka, despite the handful of flashbacks showing why he might have become such a strange person, is more like an alien.

Raising shit

A prop from Dune?