My Life as Open Source

Johnny Depp does brilliant madmen, from the impossibly strange Edward Scissorhands, to psychotic Sands in “Once Upon A Time in Mexico”, to his brilliant pirate captain in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” He does Michael Jackson well too. But Johnny Depp as Michael Jackson as Willy Wonka is just…strange. Not funny-ha-ha, but funny-peculiar.

The film itself is visually excellent (yay Tim Burton!) if expectedly odd and a little too-too. Whereas the earlier version was oh-so-sixties psychedelic, this one relies too heavily on special effects, with an unintended nod to Gigantic Bottomless Factories a la the recent “Hitchhiker’s Guide”. It did have its moments: the TV shrink-ray scene’s homage to “2001: A Space Oddessy” nearly had me off my chair laughing. The fluffy pink sheep cameo was completely charming. The Oompa-Loompa song and dance routines were inspired. The throw-away lines (”this is the puppet triage center”) were smart and funny. And the squirrels…you will never look at a squirrel the same way again.

And the rotten kids (and their by turns scheming and befuddled parents) were really, really rotten. We all know people just like that, too.

But Willy Wonka as tortured man-child didn’t do it for me. More creepy than novel, more angst-ridden than focused genuis, the overwhelming passion for all things chocolate and all things sweet didn’t really come through. Willy Wonka never seemed empowered, just a little…oh, like maybe a new nose and skin-bleaching would make him fit in. Tortured rich man? Get over yourself, already.

As well, the requisite disgust-o-matic green gloop filling in for the native Oompa-Loompa dish of mashed caterpillars suggested somewhere along the line, the special effects person had had an extraordinarily bad experience with mint jelly. It’s not enough to be gross, it has to be gummy too.

It was closer to the book than the previous version. In a recent interview, Tim Burton likened them to a Greek Chorus. The only downside for me is that it’s a little hard to make out all the words. I gotta go back and read the book!!