Synopsis: Charlie Bucket is a good, well-mannered English boy who lives with his loving family in a dilapidated house. Charlie loves chocolate, but his family is so poor that he only gets a single chocolate bar once a year on his birthday. Even more alluring for Charlie is Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, which he can see from his house, but the factory is gated off and no one has been seen to enter or leave it for years. However, news arrives that the mysterious Willy Wonka has hidden five golden tickets in the wrappers of five of his chocolate bars and the five children who find them will not only get to tour his factory, but also receive a lifetime supply of all the chocolate they can eat. A public frenzy ensues to find the golden tickets and Charlie will soon go on the adventure of his life as he becomes one of the lucky few to see the insides of the whimsical Chocolate Factory.


Review: British author Roald Dahl’s children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published in 1964 and it was a popular book from the start. An imaginative and humorous fable with just the basic message that spoiled kids – and their parents – should be punished and good kids should be rewarded. This message is mainly communicated in a series of songs by the mischievous Oompa Loompas about what’s wrong with the spoiled kids (and their parents) as they each act selfishly in different ways and get punishments matching their bad behavior. Now that this novel has been adapted twice into movies, first in 1971 and now in 2005, and given that comparisons of the new version to the old one (and to the novel) are inevitable, I’ve broken down my comparisons into two different parts: first the characters, and then the two movies themselves.


1971 movie characters vs. 2005 movie characters
Willy Wonka: In the novel, Willy Wonka himself is not a father-figure, but just an eccentric man who likes chocolate (but not gum) and the Oompa Loompas, and is completely disconnected from the world outside his factory. Almost everyone agrees that Gene Wilder is great in his interpretation of this part, one of the roles that he is now most identified with. Wilder plays Wonka as a deceptive man – seemly weak and feeble on his first appearance, he turns out to be spry when he approaches his factory's gate; seemingly mean and callous throughout the tour, he turns out to be warm and fatherly once Charlie passes his tests. Depp’s take on the character is drastically different. A lot of people think Johnny Depp’s interpretation of Willy Wonka is a deviation from the novel. But given the eccentric way the character is depicted in the novel, his interpretation is not really out-of-line with the character as written. Although both Depp’s and Wilder’s interpretations of the character are not exactly the same as he is written, both are completely valid ways to take the odd character from the novel, with Depp’s embrace of his disconnect with reality and not making him deceptive arguably more faithful to the novel than Wilder’s version. (The fact that the majority of Depp’s dialogue is lifted intact from the original novel even backs this view up.)

Charlie: Both Charlies are good, unspoiled boys who care about their families. The 1971 Charlie does get the “Slugworth Offer for the Everlasting Gobstopper Test” and the “Fizzy Lifting Drink Incident” (both subplots are not in the book), while the 2005 Charlie gets the “Helping Willy Wonka Reconcile with his Father” subplot (also not in the novel). I would give an edge to the 2005 Charlie, but not by much.

Grandpa Joe: The 2005 Grandpa Joe looks exactly like the shriveled-up character described in the book and is much better than the more ornery 1971 Grandpa Joe. In all versions of the story, this is the only adult Charlie brings with him on the tour.

Augustus Gloop: Both versions capture this over-eating character well, although the 2005 version looks the part even more than the 1971 version. Both parents comes along on the tour in the book instead of just his mother, as happens in both movie versions.

Veruca Salt: Again, both movie versions are dead-on in capturing this character, the most spoiled rotten one in the story. They’re both good, so no preference. And instead of both parents on the tour, as in the book, only her father comes along in both movies. However, the downfall of the character is different, with the 1971 version suffering a fall down a garbage shoot as a “bad egg” in a golden-egg-laying Geese room, instead of as a “bad nut” in a nut-shelling Squirrel room as in the novel and the 2005 version. Of these, I much prefer the Squirrels over the Geese.

Violet Beauregarde: The book version’s main vice is chewing gum, and the 1971 Violet captures this well, but the 2005 version ups her vices to also include being overly competitive. Both of her parents are along on the tour in the book, but just her father in the 1971 movie and just her mother in the 2005 movie.

Mike Teavee: In the book version, Mike Teavee is a TV addict, especially Westerns. The 1971 Mike is exactly this as well, but the 2005 version updates this now outdated character into a video game addict without a cowboy gun in sight. So the 1971 one is more faithful to the book, but the 2005 version is more relevant to today’s society. Instead of both parents on the tour, just his mother is along in the 1971 version, and just his father is along in the 2005 version.

The Oompa Loompas: In the original 1964 version of the novel, the Oompa Loompas were a black African pygmy tribe. But after receiving some criticism of this in the early 1970s, Dahl revised the Oompa Loompas to be a small white-skinned tribe from the fictional Loompaland. This revision actually came after the 1971 movie was made, so that version in order to avoid racial charges, changed them into orange-skinned, green-haired dwarfs that avoid offending anyone (except purists fans of the novel). The 2005 version stuck to the tiny knee-high size description of them given in the novel, but changed them so that they all were played by the same actor (even the women) and, hence, all looked exactly alike. The fact that Deep Roy, the actor who plays all of them, is clearly of Indian (that is, “India” Indian) descent actually brings back a racial element missing in both the 1971 movie and post-1973 version of the novel. (Indian workers working for mere beans, cocoa beans in this case, and taking jobs away from local workers... hmmm, think there's a possible "outsourcing" subtext here?)


1971 movie version
The first movie version of the story was filmed in Munich Germany and stars Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. It was retitled to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in order to help Quaker Oats launch a tied-in line of Wonka candy. But the movie and the candy line both initially failed with the public. However, through repeated showings of the movie on TV, it soon became a favorite with kids growing up, from the 1970s onward. Though now very popular, this movie version deviates from the original story in many ways. First, it’s a musical adaptation, with songs throughout (not just the Oompa Loompas) and that are memorable enough that it's surprising no one has converted this version into a Broadway Musical. And the first hour of the movie is presented realistically, not fable-like, and contains a number of attempts at humor (some work, most don’t, and all seem out-of-place). In addition to this weak first half, Charlie’s father is completely missing from this version of the story, probably to set up Willy Wonka as a father figure during the latter part of the movie. The factory tour is, however, when this version comes alive, as Gene Wilder’s interpretation of the odd and mysterious Willy Wonka is the best part of the movie and the visual recreation of the factory is true to the spirit of the novel (even when it deviates from it). It’s this half of the movie that made this box office failure into a popular movie favorite – so much so, that most fans tend to forget that the first half of the movie isn’t very good. It is also worth noting that, although Roald Dahl is credited with writing the screenplay, he hated the 1971 movie adaptation.


2005 movie version
The new 2005 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory completely ignores the 1971 version and instead returns to the original Roald Dahl novel for its inspiration. And it is probably the best match of material for director Tim Burton's style since Ed Wood in 1994, because he captures the early part of the novel almost perfectly, setting up the whole fable-like nature of the story from the get-go. This one is not a musical top-to-bottom, like the 1971 version, but does contain all of Dahl's Oompa Loompa songs lyrically intact from the novel and set to music by Danny Elfman. These songs are all very critical of each spoiled child and are lyrically much better than the Oompa Loompa songs from the 1971 version. It adds a single song to these, a catchy “Willy Wonka” jingle at the beginning of the tour that is sung by a giant malfunctioning music-box-like machine. The factory tour is captured well by this version, much more faithful to the novel's tour with whole tracts of dialogue taken from the novel unchanged. While some don’t like Depp’s portrayal of Willy Wonka, it’s actually a good interpretation of the character. I think a lot of people unfortunately think the performance is based on Michael Jackson, so whatever creepy image they associate with Wacko Jacko is also being projected by them onto Depp’s Wonka. (Maybe if Depp had sported the goatee that the character has in the novel, people wouldn’t be making this association.) In fact, Depp has said the performance is based on the look of Vogue editor Anna Wintour and the voice is based on Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers. The Willy Wonka character here is more innocent than the one portrayed by Gene Wilder, but has problems relating to other people. He's weird, but not creepy. As for the end of the story, an unforgettable sequence from the original novel in which Charlie, Grandpa Joe, and Willy Wonka in the Glass Elevator see the other children as they leave the factory all the worse-for-wear is thankfully present (critics of this scene should try reading the book sometime, because this is presented almost exactly as written by Dahl). Although this movie version is more faithful, it too deviates from the original novel a number of times. The biggest deviation is in adding a series of flashbacks to Willy Wonka’s childhood as he deals with his candy-hating dentist father. Although these scenes are okay, they are the weakest scenes in the movie. They also unnecessarily extend the ending, which should’ve ended with the Glass Elevator, instead of continuing with Willy’s reconciliation with his father. Despite this subplot, this is a great movie adaptation and captures the spirit of the novel from beginning to end.


My Final Thoughts
Before this new film came out, fans of this story could be divided into two basic groups: fans of Roald Dahl's novel and fans of the 1971 movie. Big fans of the novel are usually critical of the 1971 movie, while big fans of that movie version usually have never read the book. The fans of the novel, though, generally seem to like the new film version, while fans of the first movie seem to have such sentimental attachments to it that most have rejected this new version. (Most don't even realize that this new one is a more faithful adaptation of the novel and are very critical of its rejection of story elements that actually originated with the 1971 movie, not the novel.) But, in my view, all three version of the story are good. The best version is still the original novel, a light and breezy read that stays with you no matter what your age. And, as a fan of the novel, I think the second best version, by a slight edge, is the 2005 movie because its main weakness (the Willy Wonka and his father subplot) is a lot smaller than the 1971 version’s main weakness (virtually the entire first half of the movie). But, overall, I think we are lucky that both movie versions are well worth-seeing – how many novels can claim that?


My Ratings:
Roald Dahl's novel: A+
1971 film version: A-
2005 film version: A-

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age