I’m of mixed feelings about it. There’s good sides and bad sides to it. The best I can say is that Depp’s performance was the inspiration for the portrayal of Teatime in the TV movie of Hogfather, for whom it was much, much more suitable than Wonka, IMO.
I really like The Guy With The Glasses’ comparison of the two movies. He’s pretty fair about it, and actually interested me in watching the Burton version.
The only reason I didn’t like it was how dark it seemed. I loved the music, the better faithfulness to the book. And I didn’t mind the explanation for Wonka’s character
I still prefer the other version slightly, but only because it isn’t so dark. Darkness gives me the creeps.
I thought it was great, with the obvious exception of the Oompa Loompa. Not that I think the actor did a poor job, he seems to have achieved exactly what he was asked to achieve. I just thought the concept was pretty icky. Clones were big in the news that year IIRC, and so I think it was an attempt at topical humour.
But I loved the whole Daddy/Dentist angle.
I don’t like anything by Tim Burton.
It was very Simpsons-ish, I thought, and indeed quite funny. The original never struck me as especially charming.
That explains it. I didn’t think he was doing a Michael Jackson impersonation, and Depp himself has said he got the character from kid’s TV show hosts from when he was growing up.
But, in any case, it fit in nicely to what Dahl was going for. Gene Wilder was nice, but I can see why Dahl didn’t like that version. Willy Wonka always had a nasty streak; Wilder softened that.
I wouldn’t rave about the film, but I think they did a good job. I especially liked using one actor to play all the Oompah Loompahs.
Love both versions.
Other than the ending, I just don’t see that. Wilder’s Wonka was slightly threatening and not at all warm. He was faux congenial, while drolly snarking at everyone and their ( numerous ) foibles. Immediately before the reversal at the end, he was downright hostile. He had just a hint of smiling, sardonic menace in virtually everything he did, making for a certain tension right until the end. Probably Gene Wilder’s finest acting job.
Depp by contrast just seemed bizarre for bizarre’s sake. Not so much brilliant eccentric, as idiot savant IMO. I think Wilder thoroughly outplayed him in every respect.
I do think some things really worked well in the second film. The squirrels were far more entertaining than the geese laying chocolate eggs. That’s one area where superior technology really made a huge difference.
But for me the first film is much more re-watchable.
Seems out of character for you. You’re the right age. You seem to be pretty [pop] culturally aware. Are you avoiding it?
I like them both. I like Burton’s a interpretation a little bit more, but Gene Wilder singing “Pure Imagination” [is that the title?] is lovely. And I loves me some creepyness.
Aside from the Oompa Loompa songs, the original songs are just timeless. Candy Man, I’ve Got A Golden Ticket, and Pure Imagination may have been written for the movie, but they’re not dated and don’t require the context of the movie to be enjoyable.
Pitting only the Oompa Loompa songs against each other, though, I gotta go with Danny Elfman. The Willy Wonka Oompa Loompa songs are incredibly dated, boring, and way, way too preachy. The newer ones just make fun of the kids, and I love the lampshade the parents hang on it each time. “I swear that looked rehearsed.”
Sometimes I’ll run across one version or the other on cable, usually ABC Family. If it’s the Burton/Depp version, I’ll watch a few minutes until I think “this sucks” and I change the channel. If it’s the Wilder version, I’ll watch for quite a while, until I notice something I remember (from watching it a hundred times a week as a kid) has been edited out and I change the channel.
I’ve never watched the Burton one all the way through, so maybe I’m not being fair, but I can live with that. Depp just puts me off anything he’s in that isn’t the original Nightmare on Elm St or Pirates of the Caribbean. Well, he didn’t put me off 21 Jump St either, but I have seen that show in like 20 years, so it doesn’t count.
I never notice anything edited out. I must not have seen the movie enough on VHS
Who knew Oompa-Loompas had such potty mouths.
“Bit Players”–14 min.
I love it. Not a fan of the Wilder version.
Imho, they kept the boring parts, and the new parts weren’t very good.
Between the two versions, I much preferred the Wilder one, mainly for the ending.
There were bits in the remake I liked. Clearly with a big budget the special effects were better. I would have to say that I like both versions and would watch either again. However for me the Gene Wilder version wins out overall by a large margin.
I find myself wanting a mash-up of the two. I liked Burton’s vision and the dentist stuff and thought that the presentation of the Bucket family was more in line with Dahl’s slightly-OTT portrayal of a poor family living on cabbage (bonus points for casting Noah Taylor, who I think is great, but minus several for casting HBC again). Also, the bubbles scene in the original made no sense and should never have been included - as has been pointed out a million times, it meant that Charlie was just as bad as the other kids but was lucky enough to survive his ordeal intact.
However, I hated the music in the new one (really hated - and I usually like Elfman) and preferred Wilder’s Wonka. Depp is a good comic actor but the MJ parody wore thin fairly quickly.
What would really have been cool is Burton doing the sequel. Can you imagine his take on the Vermicious Knids or Minusland?
It was colorful. That’s the nicest thing I can say about it.
I liked the original, and remember being confused as to whether I was supposed to like, despise, or be distrustful of Wonka. So Wilder hit the right notes in his performance.
Johnny Depp was just bizarro and not in a good way. I had no ambivalence about him at all – I despised him from the second I saw the previews.
I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. They were two totally different visions of the same story that, to me, worked equally well.
As to what Dahl would have thought- at the time the Burton movie was in production, TIME ran an article noting how he & his wife hated the original while his widow now gave the Burton version her seal of approval. Up to that point, every pic & preview I’d seen had convinced me I would likely hate it, but then if Mrs Dahl liked it, I’d at least give it a chance.