In which we discuss movies that were recently on PPV.

[Under13]

So I finally caught the Tim Burton remake of Chocolate Factory this weekend.

Parts of it were pretty damned swank. I definitely liked the new, more varied songs from the Umpa Lumpas... The lack of Willy Wonka reciting poetry on the boat was a little bit of a let-down, although in general Johnny Depp was probably one of the very few people that could ever do justice to Willy Wonka, especially after the bar was set so high initially by Gene Wilder. "No. Wait. Please come back."

Squirrel-room instead of the goose and golden egg. Meh. Forgivable lapse from the original storyline. The squirrel room was done well enough to make it enjoyable. Wonka mocking the father was for yes. And the end result was still the same.

I more or less creamed my jeans towards the end with the 2001 reference. The first glimpse of monkeys in a stone outcropping, a small spark in the back of my brain asked "hey...was...was that...? Nahh." I also passed off the use of Also Sprach Zarathustra again as simple coincidence...appropriate musical filler for the moment. But then...then...oh man...chocolate bar monotlith. I haven't felt that much pure glee from a movie reference in a very long time.

The lack of Charlie and Grampa drinking the soda that makes you fly and almost getting killed in the vent fan was very disappointing to me. Key story moment left out. Charlie and Grampa being approached before going in by someone wanting them to steal a Gobstopper for them to reverse-engineer...also very disappointing. Charlie not being tested after stealing the Gobstopper and being told he'd lost by an incredibly rude Wonka...and the moment of true trust when he gives the Gobstopper back anyway...SUPREMELY DISAPPOINTING.

And it's not like they left these things out for sake of cramming the movie into a two-hour slot. They left these things out so that they could instead tie up the rest of the story with a neat little bow and everyone living happily ever after... I don't remember too clearly the storyline of Great Glass Elevator, but I'm pretty sure that the last 10 minutes of this movie weren't it.

And to have all this incredible disappointment immediately following the rush of happiness from the 2001 reference...

Sigh.