Scrumdidiliumptious

After seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Friday night, I wanted a little cooling off period before I tried to write about it. Let me just say: Damn! My expectations had been way too high going in, but I still wasn't disappointed.

From a visual perspective, this is one of the most beautiful movies I've seen in a long time, and by far one of the most visually stunning Burton jobs ever. When he created the "look" for Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Batman, etc, it was all in preparation for his grand opus. Un-frikin-believable.

Elfman has created a timeless and recognizable score, which will remain a cornerstone of orchestral movie magic forever. They always use music from older movies on trailers, when new music isn't ready and this one will be used countless times, I'm sure. The songs were also written by Elfman and he did an incredible job with diverse styles, using the original Roald Dahl lyrics.

John August's screenplay was perfect. I never realized how much I would laugh watching this movie. I also never realized how darn funny it would be to start movie-quoting the next day on three-hours of sleep with Paul Hutchins.... "I'm Eat-ible".

The acting was great! I really liked what the Noah Taylor and Christopher Lee characters added to the story, even though the Wonka's Dad backstory wasn't in the book. Freddie Highmore was great, as were the other kids and the parents (even though I can't stand Missy Pile). Deep Roy was awesome.

That brings me to Johnny Depp. Holy Hell was he good. He was absolutely PERFECT for this role, in this movie, with this director. I can't imagine another actor who could have pulled this off. This is by far my favorite Depp role ever.

Overall, the movie gets an A. Not only does it become my favorite Burton film of all time, it is firmly planted in my top-20 all-time favorite films.