film review: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The films I want to see on opening weekend don't seem to overlap much with the films other people want to see then. Dahl's novel is one of my old favorites from childhood, and I've found Johnny Depp good in every film I've seen him in (in Pirates of the Caribbean he was just about the only good thing). The previous film had a superb interpretation of Wonka by Gene Wilder, but apart from a couple good tunes (oompa-loompa doopity-doo), I found it otherwise lax and unmemorable, both when it was new and when I watched it again a couple years ago. So to me a new take on this story, by Tim Burton yet, was an event. Yet it opened on about half as many screens locally as the average big new release, and when I got to the theatre I found it less than half full (mostly with small children who were well-behaved throughout, though down in a front row before the film started I could see a teenaged girl waving an open cellphone in the direction of the screen: I expect she was preparing to record the film illicitly). More cheering news: the previews were for films (mostly animated, plus March of the Penguins) which all looked at least modestly amusing, as opposed to the films previewed at the Lord of the Rings blockbusters, which looked uniformly repellent.

( Review, with spoilers )