Oh. My. God. I absolutely loved this. I didn’t think I would. And it started out a little slow, but just kept building. How can you not like a move with trained squirrels?? The colors were all bright. Johnny Depp was increadibly creepy as his Michael Jackson wannabe Willy Wonka. And the Oompa Loompas were just funny.
OK, now some of this probably wont’ age well or survive multiple viewings. And you probably have to be in the correct state of mind. Now, Brandy said the correct state of mind for this movie is essentially “altered”, preferably “highly altered”. Or something like that. But since I pretty much always am a bit off, I was in the perfect state of mind. Especially after several days of not enough sleep as I went on my little adventures last week. I was probably on about half the amount of sleep I should have had when I saw the movie.
I am sure that helped.
But I was laughing pretty much straight through, and so was Brandy. Amy was too, but I suspect she was laughing at different things.
There is not one moment of this film that can be taken seriously. There is no super thrilling plot. No suspense. No real character development. No sense that you really CARE what happens to any of the characters. No mystery. None of the things that normally make one really get into a movie. But it is just FUN. If you try to think about it too much, it won’t be fun. But if you just let yourself, it is an enjoyable journey. As Brandy told me, a somewhat disturbing enjoyable journey, but hey, aren’t the most enjoyable ones always that way?
i saw this last weekend and like it too. but i have to say i liked gene wilder better as wonka. depp played a good wonka from the man-child standpoint, but when it got to the times where wonka needed to act like a businessman i felt like wilder was far better. *especially* in the tv room.
i also didn’t like what happened when charlie was the only one left in the factory and how they handled him “winning”. but the stuff after that (won’t spoil anything) was a cool addition to the story.
but i agree with you. it was fun all the way through. original felt like darker comedy. this one felt like hollywood-summer movie comedy which was mindlessly enjoyable nionetheless.
I haven’t watched the Gene Wilder version since I was a kid probably. So I have no actual significant memories of it. So I wasn’t really doing the comparison. It was an all new thing for me for the most part. Maybe I should go back and watch the Wilder version…
I just saw it with my friends and I LOVED IT! Although it seemed the rest of the theater was not as thrilled as we were….we were pretty much the only ones cracking up. I think it was worth seeing just for Johnny Depp’s little facial expressions. And what was with the flashbacks? That was weird. But the squirrels, come on man that was AWESOME! My favorite part was when Wonka said “the taffy puller!” and the dad said “the taffy puller?” and Wonka goes “hey that was my idea!”. Hehehehehehehe. Great movie…but i hated the Oompa Loompas. And the tunnel boat ride wasn’t as acid trippy as the Gene Wilder version.
Should I be concerned about my little sister talking about how acid trippy things are or are not?