Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Saw the above with my sister this weekend at the Henry Ford Imax. I felt better driving down there in my sister's Explorer than when we took my Honda to Batman Begins. Just seemed a tad less insulting to old Uncle Henry. I don't have a great deal to say about the movie, other than that it was greatly superior to the original. Of course, I hated the original, so it wouldn't have taken much. Still, this movie definitely is an exception to my general dislike of re-makes (One question that pops into my head is whether the presumption against re-makes is weaker in the case of movies made from books. A more legitimate case can be made for this type of re-makes, because there is the additional dimension of re-imagining the novel).

Johnny Depp was excellent in this one and a definite upgrade over the disturbing Gene Wilder from the first. The Oompa Loompas were, of course, the strength of the original, but Deep Roy's masterful performance in this version was able to live up to the high standard ("The bar is high," says Coach Marty, somewhere). One nitpick: even though I was amused at the identity of the narrator, couldn't they have found a less gurgly voice? I would have sworn the narration was going to be cut off by the narrator's completely swallowing his face. Good stuff overall, though.