Making movies based on books is fraught with difficulty. Along with a built-in audience you get fans who scream if you alter a word. Filmmakers who give in to the temptation to follow the source material religiously often wind up with a deadly dull movie without any passion or conviction - they're too busy making sure every little item is checked off from the plot list to bother with silly things like atmosphere and acting. Some movies don't bother attempting to have much of anything to do with the books they're supposedly based on, instead just using the recognizable name to draw people in. Then there are the movies that don't attempt to duplicate the book but rather draw themes and ideas and characters from it and use them to recreate the feel of the book, to inspire the same emotions and thoughts and enjoyment.

The last type are generally the most successful in my book. Sure, if a movie can capture the feel of a book while still presenting its story almost intact, that's better, but it almost never happens. Most who try wind up with a bloody mess on their hands that doesn't satisfy anyone at all. Given the choice between a movie that's faithful to the plot of a book to the last paragraph but doesn't capture any of its spirit and a movie that makes some changes but retains the magic, I'll take the magic every time.

Therein lies the problem with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Its story line is fairly true to the original book other than a subplot that altered the details of the ending but not its substance (it's certainly much closer to the book than the earlier movie version was) but it has none of the charm and wit and magic that I associate with the story. It's a glorified video game with overly vivid and sharp graphics that inspire no sense of wonder or awe and that looks for shock value wherever it can be found. It feels constructed, carefully pieced together bit by bit to be grand and glorious but it's empty at the core. It left me cold.

If you're unfamiliar with the basic story, the plot centers around a mysterious chocolate factory that closed its doors many years ago. No one comes in or goes out yet it still produces vast quantities of the world's best chocolate. The proprietor, Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp) has scattered five golden tickets among all of the bars produced in his factory. The five lucky people who find them get a day long tour of the factory conducted by Willy Wonka himself. The first four kids who find the bars are brats of the highest order, but the last one is poor local boy Charlie, a boy who gets one candy bar a year on his birthday, a boy who lives in a hovel with his parents and both sets of grandparents.

Like many stories by Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is at heart a morality play, one that clearly gives us someone to root for in Charlie. Wonka is a removed observer, a clever commentator, and perhaps a subtle manipulator (but that's left to interpretation); his main role is as a foil that allows us to see the other players more clearly. Charlie is the hero but a human hero; he's not without faults but nevertheless he's the boy who does the right things for the right reasons. Very little of that shines through in the movie. This Charlie is practically perfect in every way, a saint among boys. Wonka is a disturbing, nasty piece of work. Because of the changes they made to the story, the theme shifts mainly to the role of family in bringing about goodness and strength of character. Oh, that was definitely there in the book but in the movie it's the focus and overshadows the vices of the four "bad" children.

None of the characters differ substantially from the book yet few of them feel right. Willy Wonka isn't eccentric, he's psychotic and his choreographing the events in the factory is flaunted rather than subtly laid out and cleverly hinted at. Wonka was mean and nasty and cruel and totally without the wink in his eye that was ever present in the book. Johnny Depp in his Chaplinesque Benny and Joon mode might have made a decent Wonka. He didn't in creepy psychotic mode.

Freddie Highmore was decent as Charlie, but Charlie didn't really have that much to do once we got to the factory. I'd estimate he went a good 30 minutes without a single line and couldn't have said more than three sentences during the entire stint in the factory. I very much enjoyed him in the pre-factory scenes of life with the family; I actually liked that section of the movie best which tells you a lot about how badly they mangled the factory scenes.

There was nothing wrong with Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz) but not much right about him either; he was a non-entity. Julia Winter said and did all the right things as Veruca Salt, but she had this twinkle in her eye that made it all feel like an extreme put on. She just couldn't manage to play the role seriously and all four of the "bad" kids really need to be played straight to work. Jordan Fry was acceptably irritating as Mike Teavee but he too never really seemed to click. Of the kids, Annasophia Robb as Violet was the only one who was completely and utterly into her character. She was the little competitive bubble gum chewing snot to perfection.

Charlie's family was fairly bland and uninspired; none of them seemed to have any personality at all. Grandpa Joe (David Kelly) was both boring and obviously bored throughout most of the movie. The other grandparents made random remarks that were obviously intended to show how much they cared but just seemed bizarre and out of place. Mom (Helena Bonham Carter) had minimal screen time. Surprisingly dad (Noah Taylor), who is the non-entity in the book, comes across well here. Not only was he the most likeable character in the whole movie, he was the most well developed too (which goes to show how badly they screwed it all up).

Had the factory been a wonderful and magical place much of this other stuff may have faded into the background. Unfortunately it wasn't. The first real look at the interior (the room with the chocolate river) was less than inspiring. Although I'd seen parts of it in the trailer, I still held out some hope that they were saving the best for the real thing. Unfortunately, that's not the case. It resembles a Candy Land board with very simplistic shapes, large splashes of solid colors, and a winding path from one end to the other. My reaction was "so what" and that pretty much remained my reaction to the visuals for most of the rest of the movie. When I wasn't bored and unimpressed I was scratching my head in bewilderment at things like the everlasting gobstopper machine which looked like a sea lion tank at an aquarium.

The special effects were similarly disappointing most of the time. Violet's transformation into a blueberry was just bizarre. The blue started on her nose, then spread slowly, then her clothes changed to a deeper blue and only then did she start to blow up. By that time she looked like she'd fallen into a vat of paint. Most of the other big effects scenes revolved around the glass elevator and were more like amusement park rides than anything else.

There was a big fire scene and several really really creepy and even scary scenes interspersed throughout the movie. The opening credits freaked me out quite a bit, and there were one or two other times during the movie where I felt like I was on the scariest ride at the amusement park. I'm not a big fan of horror movies; if you are you shouldn't have any problems. I did though, and I'm sure some percentage of kids will too.

I've left the worst for last. The Oompa Loompas were just dreadful. Dressed in vinyl suits and often appearing from nowhere, all with the same face (Deep Roy), they were creepy and yet almost robotic. They moved stiffly and quickly and their dances were horrid. The Oompa Loompa songs were all scored and sung by Danny Elfman and they were often an incomprehensible mix of techno and hair band with a little rap thrown in. The beginning of Veruca's song was slower, almost Abba like, and as such easier to understand, but its staging was so awful it didn't help much. I had to force myself not to look away in horror whenever the Oompa Loompas were on the screen.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the movie is a shell of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the book. Until close to the end it follows the plot of the book fairly religiously but somehow it manages to strip out most of the magic and joy and brains of the story. This movie was constructed to feel like a video game without any controls, and that's not a very pleasant feeling. Go read the book. Go watch the Gene Wilder movie which, although not perfect, does manage to capture some of the magic. Whatever you do, don't subject yourself to this mess. The square candies looked round and realized they couldn't bear to watch; you should do the same.

Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older