Director - Tim Burton
Cast - Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, Helena Bonham Carter, Deep Roy, David Kelly
Roald Dahl's classic about a chocolate baron and his mysterious chocolate factory comes alive on screen with some dazzling, vividly imaginative special effects that keep the screen colourful from frame to frame.
Wonka's is the biggest chocolate factory in the world, and it's five lucky kids who get the chance to enter it. They had won a contest where each of them had found the golden tickets hidden inside five randomly selected chocolates.
Charlie is the one to find the last ticket. He had always dreamt about going in and this was like a dreeam come true when he accompnied by his grandfather and entered the factory's mysterious gates.
The five kids and their escorts are taken on a guided tour of the factory by none other than the eccentric Wonka himself. And the sight before their eyes is dazzling and colourful. A chocolate waterfall, a pink spun-sugar boat with a dragon-head, mint-sugar grass and a chocolate river. A hundred squirrels trained to pick out the good nuts and shell them. A glass elevater that would go whichever direction. The little Loompas who work for Wonka (Deep Roy plays all the different Loompas). And finally Wonka himself, with his bizzarre make-up and dressing and his eccentric ways. Yet another role for Johnny Depp to dipict his versatility.
Wonka would reveal the final secret to just one of the kids who he finds worth it. And this is Charlie, the rest of the others turningf out to be spoilt mean brats. There's some moralising and preaching at the end, and Wonka's re-union with his father. Highmore as the goody-goody Charlie and Kelly as the endearing grandpa are good.
The film is as colourful as 'Finding Nemo'. And if '...Nemo' was a colourful under sea adventure, '... chocolate factory' is a funny-sweet journey through chocolate land!
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
