All wrapped up in a neat and tidy package

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I’ve had a night to sleep on it and a day to think about it. I didn’t want to rush to judgment on something as important as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As you might guess from the fact that this is my second post on the Wonka Mythos, Roald Dahl’s story means a lot to me. Here are my thoughts, as spoiler-free as I can make them.

Johnny Depp successfully conveys Wonka’s essential sadism. Like other glove-wearers W.C. Fields and Michael Jackson, he despises children, doesn’t even want to touch them. (Oops. Best not take that Jackson analogy too far.) And the only thing Depp’s Wonka hates worse than children is their p-p-parents. It’s safe to say that Wonka, like his creator Dahl, is a misanthrope.

Casting shines. I never much cared for Peter Ostrum’s Charlie (1971), or Jack Albertson’s Grandpa Joe. I thought the true stars of the original movie were Gene Wilder and Julie Dawn Cole (the “I want it NOW” girl, Veruca Salt, cool enough to get an alternative band named after her — my #1 goal in life, by the way), with an honorable mention to Gunter Meisner (Slugworth). Everyone else in that flick? Feh.

In the new CCF, Depp creates a Wonka who is every bit as memorable as Wilder’s Wonka — not better, but decidedly different. This cast, however, has lots of merit. Helena Bonham Carter (as Charlie’s mom) is looking less chimp-like with every post-Apes film; Noah Taylor plays Charlie’s dad. Taylor might be most memorable from his parts in Tomb Raider and The Life Aquatic, but I remember him best from Max, a 2002 film with John Cusack, in which Taylor played a young Adolf Hitler.

Freddie Highmore and David Kelly (as Charlie and Grandpa Joe) are likable without being nukable. This is an especially important quality for Charlie, since he’s so damned squeaky clean he might otherwise be gag-worthy.

The new CCF lacks Julie Dawn Cole; I was hoping she’d have a bit role. But Julia Winter’s Veruca Salt isn’t half bad. The other kids do a nice job, but nothing too memorable. Missi Pyle’s a stand-out as Violet Beauregarde’s mom; the way she looks at the men (even Depp, whose sexuality in this movie is ambiguous, to say the least) sez ‘balls-for-lunch’ to me. Her ferocious stare reminded me of the alien-prostitute in Mars Attacks. Tim Burton might be repeating his jokes, but I forgive him.

Christopher Lee plays, well, Christopher Lee. You’ll know what I mean when you see his performance. His discussion of the horrors of caramel and lollipops had me laughing.

The Oompa Loompas? Big improvement on the original. The songs are funny this time around, not preachy (weeell . . . one of ’em is preachy), and Deep Roy is fun to watch.

Finally, the set design rocks, but would you expect less from Burton?

Screenwriter John August (Big Fish) has grafted a backstory onto CCF. While this does bring Christopher Lee into the movie (a good thing), it also turns the tale into something as two-dimensional as Mike Teavee. Good parents are good. Bad parents are bad. Get it? Let’s repeat: Good parents are good . . .

Indeed, I sensed a lot of effort to vet all ambiguity out of the original screenplay. Remember how, in the 1971 flick, you never found out whether the bad kids survived their squeezing/taffy-pulling etc.? Let’s just say their outcome is no longer left in doubt.

Just to make sure you understand the movie*, Depp begins the flick a nauseous shade of green, not unlike my son’s undead warlock in World of Warcraft. By the end, he’s warm and pink.

Last kvetch: our expectations are repeatedly raised, with no pay-off. Missi Pyle’s man hunger? It goes nowhere. Violet and Veruca announcing to one another, “Let’s be best friends! — Best friends, forever!”, then walking off together, arms linked — that’s gotta lead to something, right? Nope.

On a one to four Wonka Bars scale, I give this a three. That’s what I would give the original, too.

Jake — my nine-year-old — would give this movie a four**, so take my crits with an everlasting gobstopper.

Next up for Burton Watchers: Corpse Bride, an animated feature film in the style of The Nightmare before Christmas.

D.

*Wasn’t it Woody Allen who had a film in which they repeatedly flashed “Author’s Message” on the screen?

**Jake has read this review, and he says, “Three-and-a-quarter Wonka Bars. I deduct almost a whole Wonka Bar because the movie ignores Charlie.”

So there. Pay careful attention to your protag, you YA writers!

Tonight on Chelicera: my lovely wife explains how to detonate weapons-grade uranium — the easy way!

Technorati tags: Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, roald dahl, Johnny Depp, movies

Movie trailers for morons

In recent years, I’ve noticed an odd trend in trailers for mature films. (Mature? Read: for adults — after all, you can’t call ’em adult movies.) I noticed it again watching this trailer for the chick flick Asylum.

Everything is revealed. Everything. They’re only holding back on the ending, but anyone with an ounce of dramatic sense knows Natasha Richardson ain’t gonna get iced by the sexy crazy man. My prediction: she breaks up with her husband but she doesn’t end with Mr. Looney Tunes either. They’re going to go for the bittersweet angle. Or: she’ll stay with her husband, and their marriage will be somehow stronger thanks to her intimate brush with a murderer. That’s the Hollywood ending, but since this is a UK flick, I’m going for option 1.

The same cannot be said for children’s movie trailers (and I’ve seen a lot of them). Their problem is they give away nearly every good joke in the movie, as with the movie Madagascar. But at least they don’t give you the blow-by-blow on the plot.

Could it be that adults have less tolerance for uncertainty than children? Or is there a simpler explanation?

We’re going to see George Romero’s Land of the Dead today. That’s one trailer that doesn’t give away the store.

D.

Hey, you! Robot!

Karen and I watched I, Robot on DVD today. We hadn’t seen it in the movies; frankly, the trailer turned me off. It was one of those tell-all trailers that left me with the sense that I had (A) seen the movie, and (B) hadn’t liked it. Technophobic blather, I thought.

Well, I was only partly right.

I don’t think I’m being too much of a spoiler* to say that there are some baaaad robots in this film. But to dismiss I, Robot as neo-Luddite claptrap would be an oversimplification. Sure, the bots are bad and the AI is evil, but it’s the nature of that evil that is interesting.

Yes, yes, there’s the usual SF trope that humans, with all their foibles, have ‘heart’, and that is what makes us superior to machine logic. That’s the overt message, and it’s trite as hell. But there’s another message, too — a philosophy the movie condemns: in order to protect us, we must be deprived of our freedoms. If a few people are harmed along the way, well, tough noogies.

Commentary on contemporary US politics in I, Robot: am I reading too deep? It is better to live with the risk of violence than be deprived of our personal liberties. Is that sentiment so controversial we have to bury it in a Will Smith flick?

Aside from the fact I, Robot and I have the same politics, here’s what’s really cool about the movie: it has the same take on entertainment as I do. I can’t think of another film that has I, Robot‘s balance of humor, poignancy, action, and creepiness. That’s what I strive for in my writing, and that’s what I, Robot delivers.

Here’s who we have to thank:

Will Smith, who makes the most of a superb script. (“You are the dumbest smart person I have ever met.” It’s a cute line, but in Smith’s hands, it’s a corker.) Aside from starring, he also gets an exec prod credit for the film.

Director Alex Proyas, who milks Smith for all he’s worth and who makes the sentient robot, Sonny, touching without being maudlin (you listening, Spielberg? Naw. Didn’t think so).

Screenwriters Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman. Vintar, who also wrote the screen story, is perhaps best known for Final Fantasy. Goldsman has lots of fine credits but deserves a great big HUH? for Lost in Space.

Well, Karen wants to look at kitchen cabinets at the hardware store. Gotta run.

D.

*One nice thing about reviewing a year-old film: I’ll bet those of you who would watch a movie like I, Robot have already seen it.

Eyeglasses Elton John would kill for

This morning, I began writing review of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which would have made Pauline Kael* giddy in her grave. Two-thirds of the way into it, the electronic ether had a seizure, or perhaps an epidemic e-brain fart, and I had to reboot. Review lost. By the time everything began behaving, my patients had the nerve to show up on time for their appointments.

So I’ll be brief. Lovely turn by improbably named actress Zooey Deschanel (that’s Zooey, not Zoey) as Trillian. Ms. Deschanel looks edibly girl-next-door in every scene (though particularly in her shorty shorts) so it’s easy to see why Arthur Dent would fall madly in love —

Ach! There it was, a spoiler. Yes, they’ve grafted a love story onto HGG. I had to ask my son (who has read the story more recently than I) and my wife (who has a far better memory) to make sure this was an innovation. How do I feel about this? Terrific. I’m not one of those who worship HGG. (I’m far more partial to Adams’s Dirk Gently books. Click here to read Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency in comic book form . . . is that even legal?)

Sure, the original HGG is fun, but it’s flawed, too. Chief flaw: I never really cared about Arthur or any of his pals. I just read it for the jokes. The love story makes a fine antidote for this problem.

Next impression: the true star of the movie is the Guide itself, realized in cheesy splendor by the movie’s animators, and wonderfully voiced by Stephen Fry. Everyone else took a back seat (yes, even Alan Rickman; after his sixth or seventh line, I could sense him in the sound studio sucking down gallons of espresso, saying, “Oh, bloody hell, will this never end?”) although I did enjoy Mos Def’s spot-on version of Ford Prefect and Bill Nighy’s dead-pan take on Slartibartfast. Nighy, you may recall, was tons of fun as the unscrupulous hair dresser in Blow Dry (another Rickman movie), and he showed up again more recently in Shaun of the Dead. Finally, here’s my nod to John Malkovich for his bit role wearing said titular eyeglasses.

Oh — loved the Vogons. Best evil muppets since Dark Crystal.

Verdict: one thumb up, one thumb . . . eh. I miss the TV series.

D.

*The drudge, she hated everything Kubrick ever did, and she gave Blade Runner one great ripping raspberry. But I still gotta love her for liking Reanimator.

Sin City, yeah!

Karen and I went to see Sin City this afternoon. We left Jake behind, which turned out to be a good thing — way too violent for him. Almost way too violent for me. I didn’t do a Joe Bob Briggs-style amputation- or decapitation-count, but it was up there. Fortunately, none of it was particularly realistic.

Good stuff, however. I can’t think of a movie which captures the look and feel of a graphic novel quite as well as Sin City . . . The Crow comes close.

Not a great writing weekend. I’ve done a fair bit of critting for others, and a lot of thinking about my prologue. Lev has given me a lot to chew on. Leading with my villains has thrown more than a couple of people, so I may go back to an older version of the prologue where I opened with one of my protag, and quickly segued into my villains — first, clearly identifying them as such. That dumbs it down a bit, but clarity is paramount.

D