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Mar 21, 2006 - 01:32 AM |
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Welcome to six months ago |
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So I just finished watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The new version.
And I'm going to get flamed to HELL by saying this, but I thought it was as good, if not better in a few instances than the Gene Wilder movie.
Depp was... well, he was bizzare in this film. Which sorta makes sense, since he's had no human contact for about 10 years, much less MEANINGFUL human contact. He actually sorta reminded me of Adrian Monk, and in those moments where he was awkward, had no clue what to do, and had no social skills, Depp just fucking shined. He wasn't perfect in the role; in the factory, he got a little too comfortable with interacting with others, but he still occasionally had that deliberate awkwardness that makes him, IMO, better in some parts than Wilder.
The boat scene was a big letdown. I would've LOVED another acid trip like the original, and for a moment you could catch a fleeting glimpse of the original, but it was gone after a second.
The kids outside of Charlie Bucket were perfect, if by perfect you mean "I want to fucking bitchslap each and every one of these shitstains until they get some fucking common sense." Mike T.V. or whatever the hell his name was played the role of a douche perfectly. If you ask me, it was a tie between him and the rich snob whose name I never really caught and can't remember, then it was Violet (who is fucking VIOLENT at times in this movie), and then it was Augustus Glopp or Glupp or whatever. Augustus only really showed his assholishness in his first appearance, when he was holding the ticket, and then when he got in the factory, he was more like Godzilla than anything for the short time he was present before he went down the tubes.
I'm not entirely sure I liked the modern approach; I personally would've preferred it had stuck to its 1930s Great Depression roots.
Oh, and the introduction for Wonka was fucking brilliant and just classic Burton. There's nothing like puppets singing a copycat of "It's a Small World" and then bursting into flame and having their eyeballs melt and fall out of their face.
I didn't like the flashbacks, though. They seemed a little forced, truth be told, and the "braces" (braces more liek bondage amirite) were over the top.
Aside from that, it had its ups and downs, but all in all, it was about as good as the original movie. The Wilder flick surpassed it in several ways, but I felt that the new one had a better Grandpa, and a Wonka that played up to par with Wilder most of the time, and surpassed him sometimes.
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