...this new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory makes for a splashy, eccentric movie treat.
In addition, it is good to see longtime movie villain Christopher Lee in the new movie as Wonka's father. Lee is an ageless wonder and seems to get better as the years go by. He's certainly landing as many high-profile parts as ever before, his having appeared in "Star Wars," "The Lord of the Rings," and this movie in the past few years alone.
None of which makes the new film any better or any worse than the older version, just, as I say, different. I found Burton's film more episodic than the older one, though, a condition inherent to a lot of children's stories, with things jumping from one event to another in simple succession. This seems to fit Burton's style, as most often things appear on screen that probably just struck the director's fancy. Fair enough. It makes the pacing a tad jerky, but almost every scene seems to reveal some new wonder. The nut-sorting room is especially cute, with real squirrels separating the good nuts from the bad ones (bad nuts in this new movie replacing the bad eggs of the older movie, another scene in Burton's version I'm told is closer to the book), and the "puppet hospital and burn center" is humorously macabre.
Burton's ending tends to go on too long, and as sweet and winsome as it may be, it appears anticlimactic. Nevertheless, my concerns are few, and this new "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" makes for a splashy, eccentric movie treat. It will never replace the older movie in my affections, but it has enough good moments to pass an enjoyable two hours.
Video:
The director has purposely shrouded the first third of the film in the dullest possible shades of gray, black, and brown, so don't expect to see much color here, at least not at first. Moreover, the dull tones are reproduced in a rather glassy fashion, a condition that does not improve as the director's brighter hues come into play. Aside from this overall glossiness, the picture is quite good, transferred to disc at a high bit rate in anamorphic widescreen (about 1.77:1 across a standard television). No worries about digital artifacts, grain, pixilation, or the like, either.
Audio:
Warner Bros. present the sound in Dolby Digital 51, and while it does its job quite efficiently, there is really little to say about it. It is not spectacular in a "Star Wars" kind of way, nor do the surround channels come into play too often. A few sequences, like one in the chocolate factory's tunnel, display good multichannel directionality, and the noises of wind and other ambient effects come across well enough. It's just that the audio is not too noticeable: There are no big, room-shaking bass thumps or dynamic crashes. The sound does its job; it works, and it's effective when it needs to be.
Extras:
The movie is available in single-disc fullscreen or widescreen editions with very few extras, or it comes in the two-disc set reviewed here, which is only available in widescreen and includes a number of extras. Disc one contains the feature film; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles; thirty-two scene selections, but no chapter insert; and a widescreen theatrical trailer. Oddly, there is no audio commentary.
Disc two has all the rest of the fun stuff on it, but it's surprisingly thin compared to many other Warner supplements. The bonus items are divided between "Features" and "Games." In the first section, we find "Becoming Oompa-Loompa," a seven-minute segment on how the filmmakers turned one Deep Roy into hundreds of Oompa-Loompas. Then, there's "Attack of the Squirrels," nine minutes with the director and the squirrel trainer, showing us how the filmmakers used live squirrels, puppet squirrels, and CGI squirrels to create the nut-sorting scene. After that is "Fantastic Mr. Dahl," a seventeen-minute biography of the late Roald Dahl, using interviews with his family and friends and vintage footage of Dahl himself. Finally, there is a set of behind-the-scenes featurettes called "Making the Mix" that includes "Chocolate Dreams," six minutes of overview; "Different Faces, Different Flavors," ten minutes on the actors and their characters; "Sweet Sounds," seven minutes on Danny Elfman's music; "Designer Chocolate," nine minutes on costumes; and "Under the Wrapper," seven minutes on visual effects.
Among the games, you'll find "Oompa-Loompa Dance," where you learn to dance like an Oompa-Loompa (or just watch them dance); "The Inventing Machine," where you mix two ingredients together and have an Oompa-Loompa taste test it for you; "The Bad Nut," where you help the squirrels sort good nuts from bad ones; and "Search for the Golden Ticket," where you choose any of the five children and play various games of search-and-find.
Also among the extras, you'll come across the usual assortment of Easter eggs, at least some of which uncover hidden scenes. The two discs come packaged in a slim-line keep case, further enclosed in a colorful, metallic-finished slipcover.
Parting Thoughts:
The Wife-O-Meter and I both agree the new "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is quite different from the older "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" but not necessarily better. The two films are best viewed as entirely separate entities that just happen to share the same characters and plot. The differences in the personality of Willy Wonka alone are startling enough to make a person forget the other character. Yet my wife and I agreed that there is a greater warmth in the older movie, a captivating charm that is hard to beat. Although it may simply be nostalgia, a sentimental attachment to something that's been around for so long, our affection for the older film was not enough to keep us from appreciating Burton's new effort. I'm sure we will have the two movies on the shelf, side by side, for a very long time.
None of which makes the new film any better or any worse than the older version, just, as I say, different. I found Burton's film more episodic than the older one, though, a condition inherent to a lot of children's stories, with things jumping from one event to another in simple succession. This seems to fit Burton's style, as most often things appear on screen that probably just struck the director's fancy. Fair enough. It makes the pacing a tad jerky, but almost every scene seems to reveal some new wonder. The nut-sorting room is especially cute, with real squirrels separating the good nuts from the bad ones (bad nuts in this new movie replacing the bad eggs of the older movie, another scene in Burton's version I'm told is closer to the book), and the "puppet hospital and burn center" is humorously macabre.
Burton's ending tends to go on too long, and as sweet and winsome as it may be, it appears anticlimactic. Nevertheless, my concerns are few, and this new "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" makes for a splashy, eccentric movie treat. It will never replace the older movie in my affections, but it has enough good moments to pass an enjoyable two hours.
Video:
The director has purposely shrouded the first third of the film in the dullest possible shades of gray, black, and brown, so don't expect to see much color here, at least not at first. Moreover, the dull tones are reproduced in a rather glassy fashion, a condition that does not improve as the director's brighter hues come into play. Aside from this overall glossiness, the picture is quite good, transferred to disc at a high bit rate in anamorphic widescreen (about 1.77:1 across a standard television). No worries about digital artifacts, grain, pixilation, or the like, either.
Audio:
Warner Bros. present the sound in Dolby Digital 51, and while it does its job quite efficiently, there is really little to say about it. It is not spectacular in a "Star Wars" kind of way, nor do the surround channels come into play too often. A few sequences, like one in the chocolate factory's tunnel, display good multichannel directionality, and the noises of wind and other ambient effects come across well enough. It's just that the audio is not too noticeable: There are no big, room-shaking bass thumps or dynamic crashes. The sound does its job; it works, and it's effective when it needs to be.
Extras:
The movie is available in single-disc fullscreen or widescreen editions with very few extras, or it comes in the two-disc set reviewed here, which is only available in widescreen and includes a number of extras. Disc one contains the feature film; English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles; thirty-two scene selections, but no chapter insert; and a widescreen theatrical trailer. Oddly, there is no audio commentary.
Disc two has all the rest of the fun stuff on it, but it's surprisingly thin compared to many other Warner supplements. The bonus items are divided between "Features" and "Games." In the first section, we find "Becoming Oompa-Loompa," a seven-minute segment on how the filmmakers turned one Deep Roy into hundreds of Oompa-Loompas. Then, there's "Attack of the Squirrels," nine minutes with the director and the squirrel trainer, showing us how the filmmakers used live squirrels, puppet squirrels, and CGI squirrels to create the nut-sorting scene. After that is "Fantastic Mr. Dahl," a seventeen-minute biography of the late Roald Dahl, using interviews with his family and friends and vintage footage of Dahl himself. Finally, there is a set of behind-the-scenes featurettes called "Making the Mix" that includes "Chocolate Dreams," six minutes of overview; "Different Faces, Different Flavors," ten minutes on the actors and their characters; "Sweet Sounds," seven minutes on Danny Elfman's music; "Designer Chocolate," nine minutes on costumes; and "Under the Wrapper," seven minutes on visual effects.
Among the games, you'll find "Oompa-Loompa Dance," where you learn to dance like an Oompa-Loompa (or just watch them dance); "The Inventing Machine," where you mix two ingredients together and have an Oompa-Loompa taste test it for you; "The Bad Nut," where you help the squirrels sort good nuts from bad ones; and "Search for the Golden Ticket," where you choose any of the five children and play various games of search-and-find.
Also among the extras, you'll come across the usual assortment of Easter eggs, at least some of which uncover hidden scenes. The two discs come packaged in a slim-line keep case, further enclosed in a colorful, metallic-finished slipcover.
Parting Thoughts:
The Wife-O-Meter and I both agree the new "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is quite different from the older "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" but not necessarily better. The two films are best viewed as entirely separate entities that just happen to share the same characters and plot. The differences in the personality of Willy Wonka alone are startling enough to make a person forget the other character. Yet my wife and I agreed that there is a greater warmth in the older movie, a captivating charm that is hard to beat. Although it may simply be nostalgia, a sentimental attachment to something that's been around for so long, our affection for the older film was not enough to keep us from appreciating Burton's new effort. I'm sure we will have the two movies on the shelf, side by side, for a very long time.
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