The Tunnel Of Fear Became A Water Slide

Having finally seen Tim Burton's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory yesterday following a lengthy delay that was produced by extensive procrastination, I've found that I have a few things I need to get off my chest. I did enjoy parts of the film, but let me just say that I did not come out of it feeling as satisfied as I would have liked. I didn't engage in too much of a rant at Alison, Stacey and Pie with whom I went to see the film. The reason for this is because they seemed to have really enjoyed it and I didn't want to kill the moment. Now, it's my time to let it rip. Please do not get techy if you don't agree with what I have to say. It is my understanding that a considerable number of people are very sensitive about this.

I will not touch on the minor details as I certainly do not wish to engage in any kind of piece-by-piece dissection of the entire film. Although it definitely features a lot of things worthy of discussion, it would be an epic task (I reserve that for the art critics of the future as they pseudo-inevitably study the filmography of Johnny Depp). Instead I have decided that I'm going to focus on the most major qualm that I have with Charlie And The Chocolate Factory -- that is, the alternative portrayal and virtual reinterpretation of Willy Wonka's character. I cannot bring myself to say that I didn't mind it. In fact, it outright frustrated me.


I will admit now that I have not read the original story as written by Roald Dahl. However, I am quite confident that the Wonka depicted in Mel Stuart's 1971 film Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory was a much more accurate representation of a Dahlian character. Played by Gene Wilder, Wonka was deliciously mental. The frizzy hair, the eccentric clothing, his reactions (or rather his lack thereof) to the numerous childrens' different circumstances of misfortune, and his truly manic, crystalline eyes, were among the extensive range of factors that asserted him as a remarkable cause of concern. He had this almost psychedelic air about him that worked in perfect symbiosis with the environment of the chocolate factory. One got the feeling that he was almost dangerous. In the discussions that have arisen since the release of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory this year, I have heard some people claim that Gene Wilder's Wonka had too much of a fatherly personality. I argue against this, and would suggest that people are only seeing that in him now that they have experienced the infantile, squeaky-voiced character of the contemporary film, and are contrasting Wilder's performance against Johnny Depp's.

Allow me to assert that I certainly have no intent of belittling Depp's acting ability -- I merely do not think that the Wonka character, which is of course central to the narrative, was articulated particularly well in the more recent film. Tim Burton attempted to achieve the impression of the character's madness through such methods as imbuing him with a high-pitched voice, unnatural looks and childish mannerisms. The result for me yielded strong psychological allusions to Michael Jackson on ecstacy and having undergone yet more facial surgery. Simplicity of the mind does not maketh the mad. Why then, did Burton and Depp insist on presenting us with a depiction of a decidedly simple Wonka?

The on-the-nail psychotic nature in which the character was depicted in the past has been obliterated and I do not see the sense in it. Burton's Wonka finds everything entertaining, which I personally found highly enraging given the fact that almost nothing was funny in reality. He constantly gives off a Michael Jackson-esque, "look, I am so insane, I have lost my mind, but I'm actually just a childish idiot" laugh. He also performed the gag of walking into the closed door of the Glass Elevator approximately three times too many. Perhaps I had become an outright bah-humbug by this stage in the film, but it felt annoying that everyone in the entire cinema except me was in hysteria as a result of that lame, poor tactic. Capping off the badly-constructed character was his clothing. He was so prim, so proper, so poseur. The madness is just gone. In the end we are left with not even a shell of the former Wonka. May we let him lie for the rest of humanity's days.