Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Years ago I read a review of “Willy Wonka” that said it was the kind of movie that parents love to drag their kids to and then both of them, kids and parents, get bored. I highly doubt it. I’ve never met a soul who didn’t like this children’s fantasy, kid or adult. Since its release in 1971, it has become seamlessly institutionalized in society, now as famous as such films as “The Wizard of Oz.” It contains that element of warmth and adventure that was missing in 2005’s Tim Burton remake, and actually feels like there is a moral to it. Plus, there could not have been a more perfect actor to play the big man himself than the great Gene Wilder. “Wonka” is a textbook case of what being a true American classic entails.

The film is, of course, based on Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” book. “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” captures the spirit of Dahl’s children’s literature, which mixed typically bright and cheery flights of imaginative fantasy with unexpectedly dark and bizarre undertones. However, there were many places where this film strayed from the original storyline, the most memorable of which being the sort of 60s psychedelia scene in the scary tunnel and the rival candymaker who wanted to steal Wonka’s formulas. Another bonus to this picture is the famed musical side of it. Such numbers as the “Oompa Loompa Song” or “The Candy Man” are excellent and have spawned an endless number of references and spoofs.

“Wonka” is highly reminiscent of “The Wizard of Oz,” though it is not quite at Oz’s level. A child goes on a magical journey filled with laughter, adventure, fantasy and song and learns a valuable lesson along the way. In the film, these elements mesh perfectly to create the ideal family movie, the kind that brings that warm fuzzy feeling inside. There wasn’t even a semblance of that feeling in the remake. There was no clear moral to be derived from it. It was dark and unlovable and just created a nauseous feeling.

The best part of “Willy Wonka” is, well, Willy Wonka. Gene Wilder did a fantastic job portraying the complex character that is he, especially when compared to the anti-social freak with a severe case of arrested development that is Johnny Depp’s version of Wonka. Wilder’s bright blue eyes and wide smile give him the appearance of a pleasant and appealing adult; thus, when his eccentric qualities show through, it becomes much more shocking, and interesting.

“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” is a fabulous movie with a terrific blend of family film qualities and an amazing actor for Willy Wonka himself, both of which the remake sorely lacks. This is a classic worth owning, and it earns 9 out of 10 stars.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

There was really no good reason to remake “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” The 1971 version was just fine, thanks, and I think it’s best if we pretend this one doesn’t exist. Normally, I’d say Johnny Depp would be perfect for a role like Willy Wonka, but he gave the character a really weird personality that just didn’t fit the Roald Dahl or the Gene Wilder version at all. Also, the movie didn’t work in the logical sense. Of course, the whole basis for the movie is to create an unrealistic world, but it started to really annoy after awhile. The acting was also pretty bad in this film, with the exception of Charlie himself. “Charlie” fails on too many levels to be decent.

The part of this film that falls the shortest is the way the movie portrays Willy Wonka himself. Johnny Depp is usually the very best actor available for playing the weird and creepy, so I had high hopes for his depiction of the character in this film. But instead of making him a kind but intimidating candymaker trying to teach brats a lesson, they just turned him into an all out freak. In the original, Wonka seemed to walk around dreamily, appearing lost in his own, chocolaty world. Depp’s version is lost in some chocolaty planet. Which makes it all the weirder when famous director of the strange Tim Burton tried to humanize him by placing emphasis on reconnecting with his father. This Wonka doesn’t resemble the one from the original Roald Dahl book or the one from the 70s movie. It is monstrously wrong, and ruins almost the whole movie.

There were also some serious problems with the realisticness in “Charlie.” I was very irritated in this respect by the people in the movie. A little boy shrinks to the size of a bar of soap and his dad is hardly fazed. Young children are slowly picked off by an uncaring, psychotic man and the families continue with their tour of the factory, unconcerned. A flying glass elevator smashes through Charlie’s house and his family is not in the least upset. There seems to be a pattern developing here. All of this happens partially because of the weird way Burton made the movie, and also the terrible acting of the cast. The only good actor was little Charlie Bucket himself. “Charlie” is a substandard film in all aspects.

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” had potential. It had the perfect director for the job, the perfect Wonka for the job, and it had been long enough to wait on the remake to get people interested to see it. But it ended up being terrible. Wonka was represented in an overly psychotic way, and the actors were terrible and never showed emotion when horrible things happened. “Charlie” is not worth seeing if you’ve seen the original, and it only deserves 4 out of 10 stars.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

“The Lightning Thief” has been compared to “Harry Potter” in several newspaper reviews. One even told Harry Potter to move over, because a fantastic new fantasy series was moving in. Well, the “Harry Potter” franchise has got nothing to worry about. “Lightning Thief,” to put it bluntly, was perfect. That is, perfectly awful. The movie made no sense at all, everything happened too quickly, and the main characters were terrible actors. It wasn’t faithful to the book in any aspect, and they left out too many important pieces of information to make a sequel. But we’ll see another one anyway, come 2012. “Lightning Thief” brings nothing new to the fantasy genre, and it puts the best-selling books to shame.

Only eight year-olds and younger could really appreciate this film, and even they couldn’t if they’d ever read Rick Riordan’s best-selling “Percy Jackson” books. The director, Chris Columbus, made the movie as though he’d just read a summary of the book on cliffsnotes.com. There wasn’t a single action sequence or plot device that didn’t in some way contradict the way it was written in the novel. They took out almost all of the good scenes from the book and stuck in exceedingly stupid ones that didn’t need to be there. The way the film progressed through the mess of a story was totally chaotic, and left its audiences with tons of questions that were never resolved in the end.

I still question the filmmakers’ casting choices. Logan Lerman was cast to play Percy Jackson. This would be okay under any other circumstances, but the problem is that he did a god-awful (no pun intended) acting job! When he discovers that his mother is dead, he just stands there with kind of an awkward smile on his face. As for Ron and Hermione -oops, I mean Grover and Annabeth- they were a little better, but not by much. At least the satyr provided plenty of comic relief. As for Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman, they played their parts well. But the other cameos were wasted on roles that allowed absolutely none of their acting talent to seep through. As for the inevitable sequel, I have just one thing to say. “Boycott.”

“The Lightning Thief” was definitely the worst movie of ‘09. It messed with the story so much that the book’s version and the film’s version didn’t seem to have any relation at all. Also, the main actors in the film were terrible. They rarely showed emotion of any kind, and when they did, it was just expressions of confusion. Overall, this movie is just pure Hollywood trash, and is not worth seeing at all. It only deserves 1 out of 10 stars.