Charlie and the Chocolate Factory


charlie_chocolate_factory_johnny_deppWilly Wonka (Johnny Depp) has built the greatest and largest chocolate factory in the world. After some of his workers steal his secret recipes, Willy Wonka kicks his workers out and closes the doors. For 15 years, no one has seen any workers entering or leaving the factory, yet his chocolate candy is still being produced and shipped around the world. One day when Willy Wonka is getting his hair cut, he realizes that he is getting old, and he needs a successor. He comes up with a plan to open his factory and reveal his secrets to five lucky children, who find golden tickets inside Wonka chocolate bars.

The golden tickets are sent around the world and soon 4 winners are announced. The first to find a ticket is the greedy Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz). Second is the spoiled Veruca Salt (Julia Winter). Next is the competitive gum-chomping Violet Beauregard (AnnaSophia Robb). Fourth is the chocolate-hating techie Mike Teevee (Jordan Fry). There is one golden ticket left, and the achingly poor Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) finds it. Charlie chooses his Grandpa Joe (David Kelly) to accompany him inside the factory, a place his Grandpa Joe once worked before it was closed. The other four children with their parents, and Charlie with Grandpa Joe, enter the factory and begin the tour of a lifetime.

The factory is not like your standard factory, but a living factory which mixes chocolate by waterfall, and boasts a river of chocolate that enables the group to tour the factory by boat. They experience the great glass Wonkavator, which can go anywhere in the factory, in any direction, at the touch of a button. During the tour, the group learns that all the work is now being done by the Oompa-Loompa tribe, who are paid in cocoa beans. The factory is indeed fantastic: trees and grass are edible, trained squirrels shell nuts for the chocolate bars, entire meals are contained in a stick of gum, and incredible technology allows chocolate to be sent by television. The four rotten children get to interact with some of Willy Wonka’s fantastic inventions with unfortunate consequences which force them off the tour before it is completed. Charlie is the last child left, and Willy Wonka awards Charlie the greatest prize of all, the keys to the factory, which Charlie refuses. Accepting the prize means living Willy Wonka’s life: cut off from family and the world to devote oneself to the pursuit of chocolate perfection. After some time, Willy Wonka sees that while Charlie may be the right person for the factory, the life that Willy Wonka chose for himself isn’t right for Charlie. He relents and allows Charlie to bring his entire family into the factory with him, and they all live happily ever after.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2005 musical fantasy film directed by Tim Burton. The screenplay by John August is the second adaptation of the 1964 British book of the same name by Roald Dahl. The film stars Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket. The storyline concerns Charlie, who takes a tour he has won, led by Wonka, through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world.

Development for another adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, filmed previously as Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, began in 1991, 20 years after the first film version, which resulted in Warner Bros. providing the Dahl Estate with total artistic control. Prior to Burton’s involvement, directors such as Gary Ross, Rob Minkoff, Martin Scorsese and Tom Shadyac had been involved, while Warner Bros. either considered or discussed the role of Willy Wonka with Bill Murray, Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, Michael Keaton, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Adam Sandler, and many others.

Burton immediately brought regular collaborators Depp and Danny Elfman aboard. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory represents the first time since The Nightmare Before Christmas that Elfman contributed to the film score using written songs and his vocals. Filming took place from June to December 2004 at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom, where Burton avoided using digital effects as much as possible. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released to critical praise and was a box office success, grossing approximately $475 million worldwide.

Plot:
Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) is a kind and loving boy living in poverty with his parents (Noah Taylor and Helena Bonham Carter) and four bedridden grandparents. They all rely on his father for income, employed at a toothpaste factory, responsible for putting the caps on the tubes. Down the street is Willy Wonka’s (Johnny Depp) chocolate factory, which reopened after industrial espionage forced him into seclusion and to sack his employees. Charlie’s Grandpa Joe (David Kelly) worked for Wonka before the termination.

Wonka announces a contest whereby children that find five Golden Tickets hidden in Wonka bars will be given a tour of the factory and one a chance to be presented with an unknown grand prize. Four tickets are quickly found: the greedy and gluttonous Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz) from Düsseldorf; the spoiled and rotten Veruca Salt (Julia Winter) from Buckinghamshire; the competitive and boastful Violet Beauregarde (AnnaSophia Robb) from Atlanta; and the arrogant and aggressive Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry) from Denver. Charlie hopes to find a ticket but chances are small as money is tight so the best has to be made of his annual birthday present of one Wonka bar and a bar bought by Grandpa Joe’s money. All hope is crushed when the last ticket is claimed in Russia. Charlie, on finding some money in the street, just intends to enjoy one chocolate bar when news breaks that the last ticket was fake. Charlie finds the bar he just bought has the last Golden Ticket. Bystanders attempt to separate him from it, only for the shopkeeper (Oscar James) to see that he keeps the ticket and gets back home with it.

Grandpa Joe offers to accompany Charlie on the tour, but Charlie explains how he was offered money for the ticket and intends to sell it. Grandpa George (David Morris) reminds Charlie that money is far more common than the tickets, and convinces Charlie to keep it. The visitors find Wonka to be peculiar, lonely and acting odd at the mention of “parents”. The tour shows how fantastical the factory operates under the efforts of the short humans called Oompa-Loompas. The other four children succumb to temptation, and end up being caught in the factory workings and have to be safely recovered by the Oompa-Loompas, albeit in worse shape than at the start of the tour: Augustus falls into a river of chocolate and has been sucked up by a pipe before being rescued from the fudge processing center; Violet expands into an over-sized blueberry when she tries an experimental piece of chewing gum; Veruca is thrown away as a “bad nut” by trained squirrels; and Mike is shrunk down to a few inches in height after being the first person transported by Wonka’s new television advertising invention.

Charlie is congratulated as the only remaining child and the winner of the grand prize, Wonka’s heir to the factory. Unfortunately, Wonka stipulates that Charlie’s family has to stay behind ergo Charlie rejects the offer. Charlie learns that Wonka had a troubled past with his father, Wilbur Wonka (Christopher Lee); a dentist. Willy was forbidden from eating candy of any type or quantity and had torture device-like braces affixed to his teeth. But once Willy got a taste, he wanted to become a confectioner, against his father’s wishes and he left home to follow his dream. Wonka later returned to find his father and home completely gone. Wonka’s candies are selling poorly and he comes to associate his unhappiness with the sorry financial state of his company, so he makes an effort to find Charlie who helps him locate Wilbur. When they visit, it appears that despite his strict avoidance of candy, the dentist has followed Willy’s success and they reconcile. Wonka allows Charlie’s family to move into the factory while he and Charlie plan new product lines to produce.


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