Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
by Anissa Weimer
When my family goes to a movie, we usually do it in our living room, with the price of a movie ticket today, we have family entertainment and save money doing it. But when I heard that Charlie & the Chocolate Factory was being remade, I knew we had to see it. My children, ages 6 and 3 are not avid TV or movie watchers. Movies we watch are made into a family event. We read the book for the movie, if there is one, then we watch it and talk about how they are different. My 6 year old read Charlie & the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl last year, we rented the original movie and watched it together. They enjoyed it and had fun with the characters. Last month we read the book to our 3 year old, she loved it and couldn't wait to see the movie. We spent $22 this weekend to go see it. Overall, it was worth the money. My children didn't compare the new movie and old movie by based their opinions on the book. Where as my husband and I compared them all.
The kids were delighted by the scenery and flow of the story. They liked that what they had read had come to life on the screen. My sons favorite part was the squirrels, but did mention in passing that he liked it better because the old movie had used geese and he didn't think it was right to change the story so much. My daughter absolutely loved Willy Wonka and the whole character, she was engrossed when he talked and laughed alot through the movie. There were parts of the movie that were put in to make us, the parents laugh, that the children didn't always quite get. The audience around me laughed and oh'd at the amazing sights of the factory and the story. At no point during the movie did I feel uncomfortable with the content even for my 3 year old
My husband and I talked about how the movie compared as I said to the book and the original movie. We both overall liked it but disagreed on a few things. I think Johnny Depp was a good choice for Willy Wonka and can not think of another actor that I would have liked see in the role better. My husband thought he lacked something and wasn't completely believable as Willy Wonka, but he also could not think of a better person to play the role. The character of Willy Wonka is a difficult one, due to his antics and actions from the story. This movie did however, add to his character some background information, that was not in either the book or the original movie. They gave him a family history to explain who he was and why, in the end it worked with the movie, but during the movie I found it a bit annoying and pointless. But as I said it all came together with the ending and made much more sense, and showing how family is so important even if we disagree sometimes.
The cast for the children was good.The actor playing Charlie was outstanding. He was so believable and awesome in his role. The parents were cast okay, based on appearance they matched, but the way the actors and producers chose to portray them didn't always work.Here they added to the characters and who they were. They updated the children to modern day, so to speak, and elaborated on them a bit. We were okay with this and feel it would lend to the characters realism for anyone who had never read the book and known the characters.
The Oompa Loompas, good work with them, but they used one actor for all of them and computer generated him to look like many more. So they all looked exactly the same, this didn't bother me, but annoyed my husband. My kids thought they were great and loved the songs they sang, which were right from the pages of the book. As I first stated the movie is very good overall but has some minor things that my family would change if we could. I would recommend it to everyone, after reading the book. It was nice to see a movie stick to the story line, but the added extras probably weren't necessary.
About the Author: Anissa Weimer, homeschooling mom of two and farm owner from Central Virginia.
www.stayhomebesuccesful.com
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