Those Oompa-Loompas are the beat, and soul, of Burton's finest movie since "Ed Wood": a madhouse kiddie musical with a sweet-and-sour heart.
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A peach of a story delightfully imagined by Dahl and lushly realized by Burton. It's full of witty or awesome scenes, flights of fancy and characters either totally, lovably sweet or outrageously, humorously rotten.
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Here's a film about kids and for kids that has not lost touch with what it is like to actually be a kid.
Entertaining and fabulously imaginative in many ways, this second bigscreen rendition of the late author's modest morality tale on the wages of unbridled excess sports excesses of its own.
There's little wrong with Charlie, but it needs the Burton of old to animate its candy-colored universe with mischief and awe. Instead, he remains trapped like Wonka in a hermetic house of wonders, and the movie suffocates along with him.
70
Village VoiceEd Park
Village VoiceEd Park
Fun and nourishing, Charlie's the topsy-turvy equivalent of a three-course dinner in a single stick of gum.
60
TimeRichard Schickel
TimeRichard Schickel
This is rather a thin tale, not much thickened by Burton's direction or Depp's playing. There's a distance, a detachment to this film. It lacks passion.