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We went to see Charlie & The Chocolate Factory again, so I decided that I'd write a little mini-review. We already discussed it in here, there's already a topic. But I wrote two other reviews this evening. 
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Casting: Excellent. Spot on. Really quite good. Well, ok - the grandparents just weren't OLD enough. But that gets us into the "Roald Dahl pulls some things out of his butt in order to make a point" arena, and we don't like to tread on the works of dead masters of their particular field. Oh, what the heck - I'll go there.
--- ASIDE ---
In the book the grandparents are all 90 and up. Sextuagenarians. Grandpa Joe, in particular, is 93 or 97 or something. REALLY GOD DAMNED OLD. Charlie is 10. Charlie's parents are not noted as being particularly old. Charlie is an only child... as one would presume both of his parents are as well, otherwise they wouldn't be destitute and caring for ALL the grandparents. That means that Charlie's mother AND grandmother BOTH had their only child at around 40 years of age. Not bloody likely in the time period during which this is supposed to have happened.
But it falls under "willing suspension of disbelief". We're also supposed to accept that a man who hasn't left the bed (even to urinate, apparently) for TWENTY YEARS... jumps up, dances, and then goes on a long factory tour without the need for a cane, walker, or wheelchair.
--- END ASIDE ---
Scenery/Cinematography/Etc.: TIM BURTON IS A GENIUS.
Book-Adherence: Good. Excellent in most of the film. Not sure whose idea it was, however, to add the whole heavy-handed moral lesson about loving your family. I love Christopher Lee, he was excellent as usual, but he was utterly unnecessary. In fact, the thing I probably liked LEAST about the film was making Willy Wonka into a Germophobic head-case. It was really unnecessary. I mean, it wouldn't be a Tim Burton film without the creepiness, but this was just EXTRA creepiness. People have called it "Michael Jackson-esque", and that's not totally off target. Just... weird for the sake of being weird. And he did lack a little bit of the warmth that Wonka had in the book. Don't get me wrong - Gene Wilder has always struck me as too syrupy. But in the book Wonka really wanted to give the factory to a child... in a totally generous way. A creepy "maybe I can mold a child into a little freaky version of me" twist wasn't necessary. But I'm making more out of it than is necessary - it didn't hurt the movie at all.
Deep Roy: Deep Roy is my new hero. I would charge admission to any event that involved a cage, Bruce Campbell, and several miniature Deep Roy clones. Kinda like the windmill scene in Army of Darkness.
Helena Bonham Carter: She does a very good job in this film, as usual. But am I the only one that just finds her creepy to look at? On an erection-inducing scale of 1-10, where 1 is Sally Jesse Raphael and 10 is spontaneous ejaculation... she's about a 2 in my book.
Kid-Friendliness: It's fine for Dahl's intended target audience... 10 year olds. It's fine for 8 year olds. It's NOT FINE FOR LITTLE KIDS. THEY WILL CRY. LOUDLY. And it will wreck the moviegoing experience for those of us who were smart enough NOT to bring our small children to see a TIM BURTON FILM.
Adult-Friendliness: The movie really is intended for those of us who read the book as kids... in much the same way that I hope that the Transformers movie is intended for those of us who owned Transformers in 1984, not the current generation of kids weaned on "Transformers: X-TREME ENERGON WARZ!"
so...
OVERALL: GO SEE IT. Now. What are you waiting for? Find a damn baby-sitter and go.
----------------------------
Casting: Excellent. Spot on. Really quite good. Well, ok - the grandparents just weren't OLD enough. But that gets us into the "Roald Dahl pulls some things out of his butt in order to make a point" arena, and we don't like to tread on the works of dead masters of their particular field. Oh, what the heck - I'll go there.
--- ASIDE ---
In the book the grandparents are all 90 and up. Sextuagenarians. Grandpa Joe, in particular, is 93 or 97 or something. REALLY GOD DAMNED OLD. Charlie is 10. Charlie's parents are not noted as being particularly old. Charlie is an only child... as one would presume both of his parents are as well, otherwise they wouldn't be destitute and caring for ALL the grandparents. That means that Charlie's mother AND grandmother BOTH had their only child at around 40 years of age. Not bloody likely in the time period during which this is supposed to have happened.
But it falls under "willing suspension of disbelief". We're also supposed to accept that a man who hasn't left the bed (even to urinate, apparently) for TWENTY YEARS... jumps up, dances, and then goes on a long factory tour without the need for a cane, walker, or wheelchair.
--- END ASIDE ---
Scenery/Cinematography/Etc.: TIM BURTON IS A GENIUS.
Book-Adherence: Good. Excellent in most of the film. Not sure whose idea it was, however, to add the whole heavy-handed moral lesson about loving your family. I love Christopher Lee, he was excellent as usual, but he was utterly unnecessary. In fact, the thing I probably liked LEAST about the film was making Willy Wonka into a Germophobic head-case. It was really unnecessary. I mean, it wouldn't be a Tim Burton film without the creepiness, but this was just EXTRA creepiness. People have called it "Michael Jackson-esque", and that's not totally off target. Just... weird for the sake of being weird. And he did lack a little bit of the warmth that Wonka had in the book. Don't get me wrong - Gene Wilder has always struck me as too syrupy. But in the book Wonka really wanted to give the factory to a child... in a totally generous way. A creepy "maybe I can mold a child into a little freaky version of me" twist wasn't necessary. But I'm making more out of it than is necessary - it didn't hurt the movie at all.
Deep Roy: Deep Roy is my new hero. I would charge admission to any event that involved a cage, Bruce Campbell, and several miniature Deep Roy clones. Kinda like the windmill scene in Army of Darkness.
Helena Bonham Carter: She does a very good job in this film, as usual. But am I the only one that just finds her creepy to look at? On an erection-inducing scale of 1-10, where 1 is Sally Jesse Raphael and 10 is spontaneous ejaculation... she's about a 2 in my book.
Kid-Friendliness: It's fine for Dahl's intended target audience... 10 year olds. It's fine for 8 year olds. It's NOT FINE FOR LITTLE KIDS. THEY WILL CRY. LOUDLY. And it will wreck the moviegoing experience for those of us who were smart enough NOT to bring our small children to see a TIM BURTON FILM.
Adult-Friendliness: The movie really is intended for those of us who read the book as kids... in much the same way that I hope that the Transformers movie is intended for those of us who owned Transformers in 1984, not the current generation of kids weaned on "Transformers: X-TREME ENERGON WARZ!"
so...
OVERALL: GO SEE IT. Now. What are you waiting for? Find a damn baby-sitter and go.
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