Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Attention: This is not a remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a reimagination of the book of the same name written by Roald Dahl in 1964. Director Tim Burton is not a fan of the first movie adaptation of the book, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with Gene Wilder as the candy maker, and so he enlisted his all star Johnny Depp and made a movie according to his ideas.
On my part, I've never seen Willy Wonka, I've just never cared for it, and so I was not excited to see Charlie. Now that I've seen it, I still don't care for the story, but I did love most of it.

Johnny Depp is a god as Willy Wonka. I'm amazed at how Johnny just throws himself at these roles, as weird as they are, and he gives them all he has, and it comes out excellent. It's clear that he has total confidence in Tim Burton who almost never disappoints. Depp's performance is the best stuff of the movie, just watching him and his weird faces is fun. And the way he talks and delivers his lines is gold, even if it reminded me a little bit of Michael Jackson. Damn, I shouldn't have mentioned him since this is a children's movie but it's something that was on my mind the entire movie. And there's more stuff like this, stuff that only adults will understand, like when we're introduced to the kid that loves videogames, the scene opens with him playing a Shoot 'em Up game with loud gunshots and his crazy face wanting to kill everything on the screen, and then we see he lives in Colorado. Nice touch there, and I'm sure that was Burton's idea.

Charlie is played by the very gifted and young Freddie Highmore, who Depp brought into this movie after working with him in last year's Finding Neverland where the kid clearly upstaged him.
Then Annasophia Robb, (who was early this year in Because of Winn-Dixie) plays Violet Beauregarde, chewing gum world champion, and Julia Winter plays Veruca Salt. Then Jordon Fry plays Mike Teavee, the kid who loves technology (though he's no geek, weird combination), and finally Philip Wiegratz plays Augustus Gloop, the German kid who can't get enough chocolate.
The kids are all very good, though I would've loved to see more of them, specially of Violet. And it's worth noting that save from Freddie and Annasophia, this was the other kids' first movies.

The movie starts with the kids winning the famous Golden Tickets that allowed them to visit the factory for a day, and then they go in. The introductions are all great (Charlie's house is classic Burton), and once we go inside the factory the movie rules. Everything inside the factory is fascinating, even those I-though-I-Was Going-To-Hate Oompa Loompas, all played by Deep Roy. I love all the stuff in the factory from the river of chocolate to the breakfast-lunch-and-dinner chewing gum.
The ending of the movie is disappointing after seeing what was inside the factory and actually, the movie loses its magic for the last 20 or so minutes, mostly because the story is taken out of the great factory.
The score by Danny Elfman is excellent. Elfman also sang all the Oompa Loompa songs which were very good. He did the same in Burton's masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Like I mentioned before, I just didn't care about the story, before or after the movie, not sure why. But I did enjoy the movie, specially Johnny Depp's work and all the factory stuff.
Since I've never seen the first adaptation, I can't compare them, but some friends that love the original tell me this is exactly the same (in terms of story), and that the only major change is the ending.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is not a classic for me, but there's magic in it for most of its time, and will be enough for the little kids who are sure to love it.