Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryTuesday, August 09, 2005

I just finished watching Willy Wonka and there are so many things I want to write about. I guess if you're attached to a certain book, and you have an overactive imagination.. the movie comes as quite a disappointment. I watched the older Willy Wonka movie when I was in 4th grade and I loved it. But all the Harry Potter movies were terrible, I used to have such different images of every character in my head but since the movies have come out I picture the movie characters whenever I'm reading the book, it's really frustrating.

I'm very possessive about Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. It's been my friend all the time I was growing up. I used to go to sleep pretending my pillows were made of marshmallows like Willy Wonka makes them and I used to wish I had an everlasting Gobstopper, and that meadow with sugary edible blades of grass and buttercups used to keep me going. Whenever I was low, I would read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and forget everything else and get lost in the magical world of wonderful imaginative candy.

The movie was sort of an anti-climax.

The one thing that really disappointed me about the movie was that they’ve unsuccessfully tried to make it into a modern day thing. I think they would have been better off they had stuck to the original book concept. Maybe I was expecting too much out of it. I was thinking ke aajkal ki graphics and stuff is so advanced, it would have awesome sets and go beyond my expectations. That it would be awesomely graphical and stuff. All with Johnny Depp being Willy Wonka and what not.

First and foremost criticism, the movie should've started out like the book. This is Charlie Bucket. This is Mr. and Mrs. Bucket. This is Grandma and Grandpa Joe/Josephine & George/Georgina. It would've been a much more fascinating starting of the movie and would've brought back memories of the book.

Coming to the actual family.

The dad character was okay but I didn't like Charlie Bucket. It just didn't look like Charlie, he looked way to happy and full to be Charlie. Charlie is supposed to have a sunken, malnourished, skinny look.. this little kid certainly didn't. The dad was okay and I really loved the mom. Charlie's mom was a nobody character not mentioned in the book at all but the movie made her an actual character and did a lot of justice to it. The mom went totally perfectly, good casting :) I also loved Grandma Georgina with her slightly twisted habits but Grandpa Joe came as a BIG disappointment. Grandpa Joe was supposed to be a more cheery character, this Grandpa Joe just didn't go with the Grandpa Joe of the book :/ And in the movie, it says that Grandpa Joe used to work for Willy Wonka which is just a stupid thing to add and there’s no sense in it whatsoever.

Now for the other four golden ticket winners.

Firstly, I had no idea Augustus Gloop was not American but the foreign (German?) thing gave the character a lot more to go on with and his accent was so incredibly cute. I think Augustus Gloop was perfect casting, mota guploo :)

Then, Veruca Salt. Okay, I didn't really like the way they took this character. Veruca Salt was supposed to be more prepped up, she should've had her hair in one those littlebobeep curl thingies and she should've been made to wear really frilly pinky daddy's darling daughter clothes and preferably a lot of fur. She looked snotty but not snotty enough. I, however, loved the scene where Veruca and Violet are like "Oooh, let's be friends! Best friends!" and then look away and give each other dirty looks :p

Speaking of Violet Beauregard, she was okay. I don't have much to say about her character cuz she never really appealed to me in the book even. However, her mother was made out to be ultra bitchy in the movie and I think that bitchiness should’ve been downplayed and transferred to Violet's character instead.

Lastly, Mike Teavee. HAH, I LOVED THIS CHARACTER. I saw his face and I just KNEW it had to be Mike. I mean, this is one character that has been chosen perfectly. Mike Teavee was made to be played by that kid. However, when the press goes to interview him, he shouldn’t have been playing counterstrike (was it?) he should just have been watching some really violent TV show like in the book.

Now let’s talk about the factory itself.

When the gates open and the five kids with their guardians walk in, that puppet and fire thing was totally unnecessary. Also, the visitors should’ve been alarmed to see Willy Wonka and be in awe of him.. not look down upon him. Willy Wonka (in the book) is not the sort of person who’d really let such things bother him but in the movie they made it as if he was intimidated by their dirty looks at him. I did NOT like it.

And then stepping inside the factory, I had high hopes for the meadow and the waterfall thingie however it seemed as if they had copied the entire scene from the old movie. Infact, as far as I recall, the old movie had a better meadow. I didn’t like the waterfall in the old movie, it just looked like brown water and was expecting it to be creamy and thick in this movie but was disappointed again.

Then, the boiled candy ship! I used to love that part, I used to dream about that part. They totally destroyed it. First of all, as the book said, it was just a hollowed out normal pink boiled sweet. Why did they have to pull a Viking kinda thing and turn it into something very sea horsey looking? It was supposed to be ROUND! And curvy L Also, the ship wasn’t supposed to be fuchsia pink, it should’ve been baby pink… You think of pink boiled sweet, you think baby pink.

Don’t even get me started on the Oompa Loompas. Why the fuck did they make one guy all Oompa Loompas? Why couldn’t there have been different people? All Oompa Loompas definitely do NOT look alike. Also, what were they wearing? They aren’t supposed to be wearing clothes. They’re supposed to live in the factory like they lived in the jungle, wearing leaves and animal skin! Also, the Oompa Loompa songs came as such a disappointment. They turned the whole thing into an Indian movie! Yar, it’s an improv song. What’s with all those stupid co-ordinated dances? I hated the songs. And whatever happened to the good ol’ Oompa Loompa doompa dee dupe song?! I’d been looking forward to that!

Another thing that annoyed me about the movie was that Willy Wonka seemed constantly intimidated by Veruca Salt’s dad I think cuz they were trying to show he reminded him of his own dad. Another thing, I hated that whole Willy Wonka’s past thing. What’s the point? Willy Wonka is not upposed to be an emotional character in the book! He’s supposed to be the center of all creativity and happiness and hope and chocolate and imagination! They soilt the whole actual Willy Wonka character by making us realize he’s an actual person with an actual past and not a very good past at that.

The movie excluded one thing that should’ve been there. It’s when Willy Wonka tells Charlie WHY he wanted a kid to run the factory and not some adult. How could they miss that out? And the whole supposed dramatic gesture of Charlie having to leave his family to join Willy Wonka and the way Charlie says no. You don’t expect to see that expression on a kid that young. It just didn’t look right. The whole psychotherapy thing and the dad thing and then the finally realizing how important family is thing was very unnecessary and it pissed me off. How can you play around with a classic like that? HOW DARE YOU?

There were, however, a few good things about the movie. For instance there was that scene of Veruca’s dad’s peanut shelling business, I liked the way those women were lined up and it was exactly like my imagination. The Augustus Gloop pipe incident was also amazing as was the Veruca Salt squirrel scene.

All in all, on a scale of one to ten, I’d give it 5.75.