Just saw "Charley and the Chocolate Factory" and it's kinda like getting a piece of Hershey when you really wanted Godiva. It was nice but not nearly as good. Visually and in some of the directions he took the story Burton did create a different vision.

However, he seemed to suffer from the same problem George Lucas did with Episode II; just because something can be done with CGI doesn't mean it really should be. The transition of Violet into a big blueberry was neat at first but then turned into a laughable CGI blob on the screen. We also get to see what happened to Mike TeeVee after the Taffy Pulling Room with an effect that would have looked bad in "Space Jam".

The Ommpa Loompas were, at first, entertaining. This was the best use of CGI in the film as the entire populations of the ultra-mini people were all the same person duplicated over and over again. That all fell apart when ever they sang. The songs were over-produced and the lyrics were unintelligible. While the remainder of the movie was not necessarily a musical these attempts at song stuck out like a sore thumb.

I did my best not to compare this film to the original. That was easy to do because, simply on its own, this was a slow and tedious film which never took off. Satire needs a rhythm and this laid flat. Humor works best with surprise; a punchline is basically a twist to the story or reality which shocks and makes you laugh. Most times, the "jokes" in this film came and went leaving you laughing after the fact saying, "Oh, well....that was cute, but....."