So, I know what you’re thinking. Hey, why not space these things out a little more evenly, instead of cramming in a bunch of updates all at once, and then you can give fair consideration to each thing instead of just finding a block of time and catching up but cheating on real content. I have a few answers. 1) How dare you? This is absolutely real content. Well, okay, but even if it isn’t, I have a good excuse. 2) I actually watched these two movies right in a row, so I had to take extra time to digest them separately instead of getting them all mixed up together. Also, for the book, I handed it to my dad as soon as I finished it, and I wanted to give him a little breathing space prior to a review that I knew he’d read even though it would have been better to wait until he was done. But I’m well over halfway through the Potter book, and two books behind is too much. So, I got off my ass and here I am.
In any case, yeah, after an hour’s break doing the whole summer mall-watching thing (the problem is that the girls in the mall are too young and you feel like a bad person and have to stop watching almost right away; if only there was a place where hot chicks walked by, but they were all at least 20. Maybe they could serve alcohol, too. Comfortable seating, maybe some TVs. Not so much actual shopping, because that’s lame. This is a million dollar idea right here), it was back into the theater for another serving of popcorn literally and metaphorically. Well, perhaps junior mints would make the better metaphor, considering the themes but especially the chocolatey subject matter of the flick in question.
After all that, you’d think I’d have more to say about the movie. Very enjoyable, almost entirely due to Johnny Depp. The writing had good moments too, but so many things that could have been really annoying (particularly the Oompa Loompa songs, to a lesser extent the morality plays that the songs served as microscopes for) were made hilarious by Willy Wonka’s childlike (sometimes spitefully so) enjoyment of them.
Comparison to the Gene Wilder version? Well, I think I liked Depp better on the whole because candy really is a kid’s game, and he nailed that. But there’s a lot to be said for Wilder’s omnisciently knowing Wonka, leading his would-be proteges through a series of tests and only pretending to wide-eyed innocence. It’s a little too musical for me, though.