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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.
The results, I would say, were mixed, which in context was a bit of a disappointment. Except for a tacked-on ending, the plot stuck very close to the book, which was good. About 20% of what was added was a distinct improvement. I liked, for instance, updating Violet Beauregarde as a present-day conceited overachiever, even though that made her gum-chewing a bit incongruous. And revealing that Mike Teavee didn't even like chocolate, though a passing reference to his having gamed the system to get his Golden Ticket isn't followed up on. When Grandpa George starts swearing, Charlie's dad (I think) clamps his hands over the boy's ears: having the sound cut out at that moment was a clever touch. Having Grandpa Joe be a former Wonka employee made complete sense. I also liked some in-jokes and back references: Wonka using Edward Scissorhands-type shears to cut the ribbon opening his factory, and quoting "Good Morning Sunshine"; the use of the Also Sprach Zarathustra fanfare during the TV candy-bar transmission, though the timing of matching it up with the action was incredibly bad. Johnny Depp gives an interpretation of Wonka entirely unlike Gene Wilder's but no further removed from the book. (Wilder was an unpredictable manic; Depp plays a child-like space case whose nervousness gives him away and who walks into the wall of his glass elevator at least twice too often. One reviewer called him a cross between Carol Channing and Michael Jackson.) Also, adequate solutions were provided to the two biggest problems: having Wonka make a surprising entrance that was totally different from Wilder's classic surprising entrance; and the problem of the ethnicity of the Oompa-Loompas. (In the book, they're loincloth-clad black pygmies. The first film turned them into green rejects from the MGM Wizard of Oz. This film made them more dignified jungle-dwellers who wear old skiffy spacewear in the factory.)
All these are virtues, but there were problems. Much of the book's distinctive language ("Nobody ever goes in ... and nobody ever comes out!") was lost in paraphrase. Grandpa Joe's leap out of bed was pathetic. The Oompa-Loompas are all played by one computer-duplicated actor, which makes them look disconcertingly like clones. I didn't enjoy the songs at all, and couldn't make out most of the words. The children are underdeveloped and their distinctive characteristics not followed through on (Veruca does not ask for a pet Oompa-Loompa, as she does in the book). Many of the additions don't work. Two in particular struck me as needless attempts to plug inconsequential holes in the plot: a pedantic argument between Wonka and the children as to whether it's plausible for the Oompa-Loompas to have improvised their songs; and a quick shot of Wonka and Grandpa Joe (but not Charlie) discarding the protective glasses they'd worn in the television room. It's a quick shot of a trashcan that only lasts a second, but why is it there at all? Did Burton worry that audiences would wonder what became of the glasses?
Burton seems less concerned about a lot of other small holes in the plot, such as why everyone just stands there like mute dummies, not even reacting in shock, as Veruca approaches the squirrels (somehow getting through a gate Wonka later has to open with a key). This is one tiny example of a problem I found throughout the film, and in a lot of sfx-based films: slack and lax direction of the actors. Too many scenes of them standing or walking around looking at blue screens. Too much of the lesser characters just occupying space and not doing anything. Too many slow or poorly-judged reactions to other characters' lines. I know that not every director can be Joel Coen, who makes every second count and every extra know exactly what his character is doing and why at all times, but in a world with movies like O Brother Where Art Thou? and Raising Arizona whose chief joy is the snap with which the lines are delivered, it's sad that there should be this kind of sludge.
Then there's the ending. Neither film simply wrapped up with the book's quick happy conclusion; both inserted the requisite "all is lost" false ending. Gene Wilder's mercurial Wonka gave Charlie a brisk good-bye and waved him off. Depp's Wonka, whom I thought at first said that Charlie could bring his family along to the factory, then says the advantage of going is that he can leave his family behind. Charlie, credibly and creditably, turns Wonka's offer down; Wonka calmly departs. Now, I didn't mind the insertion of a backstory for Wonka in which his career obsession is the result of being the candy-deprived son of an authoritarian dentist (ably played by Christopher Lee in the film's best performance), though it would have been better to leave his origin a mystery. But I didn't understand the father-son reunion scene. Wonka admits to Dad that he's never flossed since running away from home, and then they hug? Huh?
OK, not a bad film, lots of clever stuff, but with a little imagination it could have been so much better. If you're not as curious as I was, wait for the video.
The results, I would say, were mixed, which in context was a bit of a disappointment. Except for a tacked-on ending, the plot stuck very close to the book, which was good. About 20% of what was added was a distinct improvement. I liked, for instance, updating Violet Beauregarde as a present-day conceited overachiever, even though that made her gum-chewing a bit incongruous. And revealing that Mike Teavee didn't even like chocolate, though a passing reference to his having gamed the system to get his Golden Ticket isn't followed up on. When Grandpa George starts swearing, Charlie's dad (I think) clamps his hands over the boy's ears: having the sound cut out at that moment was a clever touch. Having Grandpa Joe be a former Wonka employee made complete sense. I also liked some in-jokes and back references: Wonka using Edward Scissorhands-type shears to cut the ribbon opening his factory, and quoting "Good Morning Sunshine"; the use of the Also Sprach Zarathustra fanfare during the TV candy-bar transmission, though the timing of matching it up with the action was incredibly bad. Johnny Depp gives an interpretation of Wonka entirely unlike Gene Wilder's but no further removed from the book. (Wilder was an unpredictable manic; Depp plays a child-like space case whose nervousness gives him away and who walks into the wall of his glass elevator at least twice too often. One reviewer called him a cross between Carol Channing and Michael Jackson.) Also, adequate solutions were provided to the two biggest problems: having Wonka make a surprising entrance that was totally different from Wilder's classic surprising entrance; and the problem of the ethnicity of the Oompa-Loompas. (In the book, they're loincloth-clad black pygmies. The first film turned them into green rejects from the MGM Wizard of Oz. This film made them more dignified jungle-dwellers who wear old skiffy spacewear in the factory.)
All these are virtues, but there were problems. Much of the book's distinctive language ("Nobody ever goes in ... and nobody ever comes out!") was lost in paraphrase. Grandpa Joe's leap out of bed was pathetic. The Oompa-Loompas are all played by one computer-duplicated actor, which makes them look disconcertingly like clones. I didn't enjoy the songs at all, and couldn't make out most of the words. The children are underdeveloped and their distinctive characteristics not followed through on (Veruca does not ask for a pet Oompa-Loompa, as she does in the book). Many of the additions don't work. Two in particular struck me as needless attempts to plug inconsequential holes in the plot: a pedantic argument between Wonka and the children as to whether it's plausible for the Oompa-Loompas to have improvised their songs; and a quick shot of Wonka and Grandpa Joe (but not Charlie) discarding the protective glasses they'd worn in the television room. It's a quick shot of a trashcan that only lasts a second, but why is it there at all? Did Burton worry that audiences would wonder what became of the glasses?
Burton seems less concerned about a lot of other small holes in the plot, such as why everyone just stands there like mute dummies, not even reacting in shock, as Veruca approaches the squirrels (somehow getting through a gate Wonka later has to open with a key). This is one tiny example of a problem I found throughout the film, and in a lot of sfx-based films: slack and lax direction of the actors. Too many scenes of them standing or walking around looking at blue screens. Too much of the lesser characters just occupying space and not doing anything. Too many slow or poorly-judged reactions to other characters' lines. I know that not every director can be Joel Coen, who makes every second count and every extra know exactly what his character is doing and why at all times, but in a world with movies like O Brother Where Art Thou? and Raising Arizona whose chief joy is the snap with which the lines are delivered, it's sad that there should be this kind of sludge.
Then there's the ending. Neither film simply wrapped up with the book's quick happy conclusion; both inserted the requisite "all is lost" false ending. Gene Wilder's mercurial Wonka gave Charlie a brisk good-bye and waved him off. Depp's Wonka, whom I thought at first said that Charlie could bring his family along to the factory, then says the advantage of going is that he can leave his family behind. Charlie, credibly and creditably, turns Wonka's offer down; Wonka calmly departs. Now, I didn't mind the insertion of a backstory for Wonka in which his career obsession is the result of being the candy-deprived son of an authoritarian dentist (ably played by Christopher Lee in the film's best performance), though it would have been better to leave his origin a mystery. But I didn't understand the father-son reunion scene. Wonka admits to Dad that he's never flossed since running away from home, and then they hug? Huh?
OK, not a bad film, lots of clever stuff, but with a little imagination it could have been so much better. If you're not as curious as I was, wait for the video.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-19 04:57 am (UTC)Really disagree about the argument scene. The hint that this is a set-up is already there: it doesn't need to be pounded in like that. The hint of a set-up is also beautifully carried in the book at the delicious moment when Wonka suddenly realizes Charlie is the only child left and says "That means you've won." Won what? Charlie wonders, and this wonderment gives sparkle to the ending. Again, the film spoiled this and pounded it in with the repeated addition of the announcement that one of the children would win a special prize. The Wilder film just deleted that whole business.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-20 12:56 am (UTC)