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I just returned with my 12 year old daughter from seeing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."
This is what we didn't like about it:
WILLY'S CHARACTER:
Willy Wonka is portrayed as an insecure nerdy freak.
WILLY'S FLASHBACKS: The kids don't need or want to see what horrible abuses Willy went through as a child to become the freak he now is.
WILLY'S FAMILY ISSUES: Why did Willy have to have these mundane conflicts for Charlie to help him solve?
It's not enough for kids to enjoy Charlie winning the contest and flying in the glass elevator to pick up his family to live happily ever after in the chocolate factory?
The same psycho-analysis/background story happened with the real-people version of HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. We don't want to see the Grinch's abusive childhood. It's disturbing to the children and ruins the story.
CANDY LAND: the most magical thing I remember about the first version, WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY was when Willy opens the door to his land, where the grass, river, mushrooms, trees are all edible candy. It was on the same level as the wonder in THE WIZARD OF OZ when the door opens to the technicolor Munchkinland.
In this version, what a let down. It being 2005, and Tim Burton's movie, I expected an amazing set-up. But instead it looked identical to the first set in contents, only even less in artistic quality.
Between the unimpressive computerized sets, and as Cranks mentions, the casting of one actor as all the Oompa Loompas, it looks like someone cut the budget on Burton.
The last and worst part of the movie---binding and suspending a real cow in the air, showing Oompa Loompas whipping it with whips and the cow mooing in pain, to support the joke of whipping cream. And then Charlie and his Uncle laughing at the sight. It was shocking and very disturbing.
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