Today we went to see a preview of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Dee got us all free tickets because she works at a school and the Nielsen people were recruiting there.
Uphots:
- Johnny Depp seriously looks like Michael Jackson in the picture. Same prince-bob haricut. His pores were really big, but I think that has to do with the fact that the movie isn’t done yet– that Movie Star stuff they do to smooth things out is probably one of the last things they get to
- Depp made Wonka a smite weirder and a smite less eccentric. Coulda done a lot more with the role
- The story was a bit maudlin– more family-ish theme than the original
- Lots of Willy Wonka back story– basically, he’s driven by an over-the-top dentist father who threw out all of his Halloween candy
- The lines are much less magical (no speech on gondola, for instance) and much more smart-alecky/ appeal to both parents and kids-type stuff
- The kids are all well-cast and the kid characters are updated pretty smartly
- The oompa-loompas (well, the oompa-loompa, they only had one and duped as many of him as they needed) were great and their “kid exeunt” musical numbers were all great
Definitely not better than the original, but not a bad new take on it. Some lost opportunity (Wonka) and some good new stuff (Oompa-Loompas).