Not exactly for chocoholics

I was raised on chocolates (the local brands like Goya and Serge’s), but not necessarily on American children’s stories.

When I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory therefore, I was more on the lookout for those yummy-to-look-at confectionaries rather than finding out if director Tim Burton had remained faithful to the Roald Dahl book.

To begin with, I don’t quite understand the need to remake the 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie – unless of course the Hollywood people are already bankrupt of ideas for new films (which is quite possible).

And so we see another retelling of this story about some chocolate factory and its eccentric owner – with new twists and turns to it, of course. But basically, it’s still a tour of the chocolate factory.

How to get into the tour? Well, you have to be a kid and win one of the five gold tickets placed inside the Wonka chocolate bars that are distributed all over the world.

On the first of February, all five winners – all accompanied by a parent/guardian – gather at the gate of the chocolate factory and are welcomed by Willy Wonka – as portrayed by Johnny Depp, who comes out looking like Edward Scissorhands and Michael Jackson with an overbite.

One of the winners – Augustus Gloop – comes from Germany. He is fat and a glutton – forever eating Wonka chocolates. This touch actually convinces viewers to believe all the more that his chances of winning are really big since he buys Wonka chocolates regularly.

Another winner – Veruca Salt – gets her golden ticket only because her father is so filthy rich, he stopped the operations of his nut factory and made his workers concentrate on opening bars and bars of Wonka chocolates which he buys by the boxes.

Then, there’s this overachiever – Violet Beauregard – who is determined to win any competition and has it in her system to win any race at any cost.

Winner No. 4 is Mike Teevee, a kid with violent tendencies.

And so we meet all four repulsive kids – children you’d want to wring by the neck and drown in a big pail of water had it not been for our Bantay-Bata awareness.

Fortunately, before we could question God’s fairness in this world, we get the final winner: Charlie Bucket, a poor, but extremely kindhearted boy who lives with his parents and two sets of grandparents just in the shadow of the chocolate factory. A grandfather, in fact, used to work in the factory – until it was shut down by Willy Wonka after discovering that some workers had been stealing his secret formulae and putting up their own delicatessens.

Now that it had reopened, the grandfather has expressed his desire to make just one last visit to the factory before he dies. When Charlie wins a golden ticket, he accompanies the kid to the factory.

The chocolate factory tour itself – although fascinating at times, what with those eye-popping gadgets and out-of-this-world inventions like the elevator that goes up and out (yes, not only up and down, but up, down, sideways and out of the building) – often leaves you feeling cold and unwelcome (and it doesn’t help that Willy Wonka is such a frosty host and tour guide).

As a viewer expecting a feast for the eyes while watching this film, you won’t crave for chocolates and rush out to buy those overpriced candy bars sold right outside the theater. If I remember it right, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in 1971 had a lot of delectable treats all over. But here in the updated version of the Roald Dahl story, it’s like entering the Soylent Green factory (remember the 1973 science fiction where people were turned into biscuits?).

Well, come to think of it, for those kids in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it was really like a visit to Soylent Green because something terrible happens to each of them – actually a well-deserved punishment for being so bratty.

Unfortunately, it’s not only the incorrigible kids who get punished at this point of the film. Even the viewer – whose only fault was to have chosen to watch this film instead of something else – also suffers because the story gets to be predictable (and, yes, boring).

After a kid gets his punishment, expect a production number – as performed by the Oompa-Loompas, an exploited lot who are only given cocoa beans for all that hard work at the factory. Yeah, you already know the pattern. Punishment, then production number. Punishment, then production number. It’s as predictable as our local awards ceremonies where one or two categories are presented – to be followed by a production number.

But take out these repetitive exercises and you still have an enjoyable children’s film that will also please adults. (How come I had this feeling while watching the movie that it was meant for adults?)

What really saves this film is the character of Charlie Bucket because your heart goes out to him (and also to his family). He makes up for the rottenness of the other kids in the tour.

In the end, I just have to say that I was a bit disappointed with this movie because for a film set in a chocolate factory, there weren’t really that many chocolates for the eyes to enjoy. But then, that’s the chocoholic in me and not the film lover.