****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE, LATE SHOW WITH NEW EDITS/COMMENTS****
I think that this is easily one of the better adaptations of a novel. Ever. It wasn't the same effect as the Harry Potter franchise and the feeling that they were siphoning off the images from my own head, but this wasn't a far cry from that, either. Roald Dahl was an amazing children's novelist. Sorry to J.K. Rowling fans, but I'm not sure that we've ever had, before or since, a novelist aiming solely at children who has been so successful at creating a perfect environment for a child's imagination. He manages to blend seamlessly the real and the fantastic in ways that no one else has ever done, or even attempted to do. This movie, which is NOT, if anyone's confused by the date, the version starring Johnny Depp, reflects that balance perfectly and in ways that were not recreated in the more recent version.
For me, this was a childhood favorite movie. When I was in grade school, my teacher created a "point" system that reset every week. You got points for doing homework, for good behavior, or for various tasks that would occur throughout the day. You could lose points, too, like for not doing your homework, or for acting up. But, if you had 100 points by Friday, the teacher would bring something in for us special. Some weeks he'd give us an extra recess, others he'd bring in sweets, and my favorite (of course) was when he'd bring in movies. This was one of those movies, and on more than one occasion as I recall, since I was in his class for two years thanks to the convoluted Montessori education system.
Wonka represents the hardest part of the story balance for me. Gene Wilder managed to do something that I think Johnny Depp failed at a bit: creating a character that was childlike, but still a reasonable grown up, one that was eccentric, but not creepy, and a man that kids might love as a representative of his candy company. He really was gold in this flick, although I don't always love his performances in other films. This movie manages to deal with Dahl's darker moments, such as the misbehavior of several of the children, most notably Verucca Salt and Violet Beauregard, in a way that points out the poor behavior, indicates the threat of consequences, but keeps things light enough that everyone is still on board.
For the 70s, the special effects are very good, and I think as a whole, this movie has survived the test of time with remarkable aplomb. Some older movies, which I mentioned most recently in my review of Murder on the Orient Express, feel remarkably hackneyed and out-of-date. This just feels like it's set in someplace where life is just a little less complicated. For me it's really a symbol of what childhood is supposed to be like. No responsibilities, but learning that those responsibilities are coming, and that they're not all bad.
