Chocolate goodness

Just got back from Tim Burton's "re-imagining" of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'll have to watch it again because there was so much happening visually that it was hard to process everything at once, but generally it was a positive experience. Lots of laughs from the audience (but not in that bad Fantastic Four way).

Here's a few observations:

• This one is much closer to the book than the Gene Wilder version, which is a good thing. The ony real differences I noticed were the ending and the backstory that Tim Burton invented for Willy Wonka. I had my doubts about the backstory going in, but I think they did a good job with it, and the ending was changed to allow them to wrap up Wonka's story as well. But surprisingly, not much of a setup for a sequel. Guess there's no plans to adapt Great Glass Elevator?

• Loved the way the Oompa-Loompas were handled in this one. Those little orange guys in the first version always creeped me out.

• Johnny Depp's weird hybrid Canadian/Wisconsin accent was mildly annoying. And he definitely was reminiscent of Michael Jackson in some moments.

• CGI animation is starting to annoy me. It should not be used unless it absolutely has to, because nothing annoys me more than seeing a shot that's not composited correctly or obvious CGI versions of main characters when it's not necessary. There were a couple of moments like that tonight, but thankfully not many. Just because you can doesn't mean you should... *cough*George Lucas*cough*