Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a sublimely weird movie that is going to have some people just scratching their head in bewilderment. I certainly uttered a “What the hell?” a few times when things got particularly daffy. The flick looks fantastic and the Depp does a pretty good job of keeping the insanity rolling… and the oompa-loompas are pretty neat too. Oddly, the fat kid (Augustus Gloop) was totally CG… like they didn’t want to cast an actual fat kid and humiliate him… which maybe is what happened? It was a particularly good CG actor and it merged very well with the live action stuff… it was just a little weird. Of course, he’s the first one to buy it (falls into the chocolate river) so he doesn’t need to be on screen too much.

The only real problem with the movie is that it gives us backstory for Willy Wonka and then a schmaltzy ending for him that was totally unnecessary and dragged out the movie. On the other hand, it gave Christopher Lee more screentime.

This film does have songs – only by the oompas – and they are each done in a different musical genre… pop, metal (which was very funny), techno, dance. Pretty neat.

Score: 78