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I expected to see this movie on Mr. Cranky's worst of 2005 list.
This was easily the worst remake I've ever seen.
One thing about this movie - it doesn't get your hopes up. The voice over in the beginning lets you know you're in for a rough ride. It just gets worse and worse. When the Oompa Loompa's sang "Augustus Gloop will not be harmed!" I wanted to throw something. The menace is part of the film - take it out and you have a syrupy mess.
This film was a joke told by someone who didn't get it.
Where does Mr Cranky get off suggesting that Burton wanted "to claim a closer relationship with Roald Dahl's source material" and "Shockingly, Burton and friends didn't screw with the basic story"? The main point of this remake as far as I can tell was to turn Willy Wonka into Michael Jackson and then cure him of his weirdness by reuniting him with dad. Perhaps Burton wanted to see that, but I didn't need to, and I'm offended that he thought he had the right to screw with one of the best children's movies ever made.
The end product is a condemnation of eccentricity and an endorsement of good old fashioned family values. This has nothing to do with anything Dahl ever wrote.
Mr. Cranky gave Cassablanca a lower rating than this trainwreck? Unbelievable.
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