CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY REVIEW

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

The first adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic book, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, was released in 1971 and was renamed 'Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory'. Gene Wilder played the title character who was a chocolate tier and had his own factory. The film's main focus, however, was a young boy named Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) who is poor but wins one of five tickets to visit the famous factory. This version was good but it wasn't an accurate adaptation of the book it was based on.

In 2005, however, director Tim Burton remade it with Johnny Depp (who else?) playing Wonka and, in my opinion, it's better than the 1971 version. It's faithful to Dahl's book and is entertaining throughout. The performances are better. Depp is unrecognisable in his pale make-up and gives a funny yet sympathetic performance as Wonka. Throughout the factory tour, he has flashbacks to his childhood and we find out that his father (Christopher Lee) was a dentist and banned him from eating chocolate. This gives him more background than Wilder's version of the character. 

In this remake, Charlie is played by Freddie Highmore who got the part after Depp recommended him for the part after they worked together in Finding Neverland. I enjoyed Highmore's performance as he is more sympathetic. However, we can see that he is thankful for what he has which is a loving family that includes his mother (Helena Bonham Carter), father (Noah Taylor) and Grandpa Joe (David Kelly). We know how much he would love to go the chocolate factory as he looks out of his window longingly at it. Fortunately, he wins one of the five tickets to visit the factory and this is where his adventure begins.

The other four child actors give strong performances despite playing one dimensional characters. These include: Philip Wiegratz as Augustus Gloop, an overweight boy who is addicted to chocolate, especially Wonka bars; Julia Winter as Veruca Salt, a brat who is spoilt by her rich parents and won her ticket after his father forced his workers to unwrap thousands of bars to find a ticket; AnnaSophia Robb as Violet Beauregarde, a competitive girl who is constantly chewing gum and Jordan Fry as Mike Teavee, a boy who actually hates chocolate but won by checking the manufacturer dates. They all come off as unlikable characters but, fortunately, like in Dahl's book, they get what's coming to them.

The 1971 film was also classed as a musical for the many original song it featured. The only memorable songs from that film are the ones that the Oompa Loompas sing after a character's demise as they were catchy. This film doesn't feature as many songs but they're all sung by the Oompa Loompas who are all portrayed by Deep Roy, thanks to CGI. In my opinion, these songs are better as they're all different, instead of just singing 'Oompa Loompa, doopety dee' several times.

Many people will disagree with me for favouring the 2005 version and that's fine. I can understand why people enjoy the 1971 version but, for me personally, I've always loved the former version ever since I watched it in cinema at the age of 8. It was my favourite film at that age and, even now, over a decade later, it's still one of my favourites. It's funny, entertaining and is a better adaptation of Dahl's book.

8/10