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[16:59] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ***** (5/5)
Date: 8/1/05 at 12:59PM
My first experience of English cinema going was great! The whole allocated seating thing is interesting - there's no point stripping down for less wind resistance on the run down to the cinema because you have a seat allocated, however, there is simply NO room in these cinemas (Odeon - fanatical about film, not so fanatical about seating space). I like to sit there and drain every last drop of goodliness out of a movie - I'm the guy sitting there at the end reading the license number from the Humane Society license as it wanders past at the very end of the credits - this proved a little difficult and I was nearly trampled by an angry mob who wanted to leave the SECOND the movie proper fnished while I sat there reading the credits. Anyway, on to the movie:
I am yet to see Johnny Depp do anything bad (no, I've never seen 21 Jump St) so I always look forward to his movies and this one was great. I have never seen the "original" Charlie and the Chocolate factory movie although I've read the book and, like all Roald Dahl books, enjoyed it immensley. Roald mostly wrote for children but his writing style (for those who don't know) is really quite dark. The beautiful thing about his writing is that he never coddled children - he wrote for them but never spoke down to them or hid the facts. If someone died, they died, if something bad happened - it happened. Sort of like what the Lemony Snicket books are like these days.
Am I rambling, well a little bit but I think it's important to to point out because this movie brought a similar level of disquiet in the screenplay - it did get a smidgey bit saccharine here and there but to be honest, so did the book.
To sum it up - this movie was brilliant. The screenplay was perfect, the sets (digital and otherwise, perfectly brought to life the quirky and slightly impossible world that Roald created and the acting was superb from everyone. The music for the Oompa Loompa songs was very nicely done and if you can catch all the lyrics, quite cleverly put together. I literally had an ear-to-ear grin when those songs were playing but the Verucca Salt one was my favourite.
I have never before had the urge to clap for a movie but as the credits rolled on this one I finally understood why people might feel the need to do so (although I will never understand why ANYONE clapped The Phantom Menace - they did, I was there).