Willie Wownka (Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (DVD))

Member Name:

Product:	Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (DVD)
Date:	25/06/03 (1730 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant family classic

Disadvantages: none

In the world of films, there are movies that are great to watch with your entire family. From the Disney cartoon films, Shirley Temple, and even the recent animated film ?Shrek. Then there are those films that are widely considered classic family films. From ?Old Yeller? to ?Herbie The Love Bug?, the world of movies has had it shares of classics. In 1971, one of the greatest family movies was released and thirty years later, it?s already been hailed as a timeless masterpiece by film critics and moviegoers. The movie is called ?Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory?.

When it was released in 1971, ?Willy Wonka? wasn?t a huge success when it came out and the candy bar that was released the same time of the film didn?t last very long and was shelved for good. Thirty years later, children who had seen the film in the 70s to their children watching the movie today have watched the ?Willy Wonka? film all over the world.

In 2001, fans of the film were finally happy with the release of a new DVD release of ?Willy Wonka? that not only showed the film remastered and making it fresh for a new generation of filmgoers but revealing secrets behind the movie along with interviews with director Mel Stuart, producer David L. Wolper, screenwriter David Seltzer, the film?s star Gene Wilder and the actors who played the kids thirty years ago.

Based on the book ?Charlie & The Chocolate Factory? Roald Dahl also wrote the screenplay with an uncredited David Seltzer

The story is about a young boy named Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) who is filled with hope and dreams who lives in a poor family with grandparents including his Grandpa Joe (?Chico & The Man? star Jack Albertson) who have been staying in their bed for twenty years. During his science class, there?s news of Willy Wonka (magnificently played by Gene Wilder) is going to open his factory but it?s only for five people to enter by finding five golden tickets in his Wonka chocolate bars. For Charl
ie, it?s something he?s hoping to see since his Grandpa Joe has told him stories about Willy Wonka and his factory.


The first four winners of the Golden Ticket are four of the most horrible kids you could even imagine. First is a fat German kid named Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner) who likes to eat a lot of food and is pretty much a pig.

The second is a spoiled British girl named Veruca Salt (wonderfully played by Julie Dawn Cole) who torments her father (the late and great Roy Kinnear) by trying to find the Golden Ticket while trying to please his daughter.

The third is a gum-chewing brat named Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson) who is addicted to gum chewing and is also a rotten kid.

The fourth and final kid is a TV-addicted brat named Mike TeeVee (Paris Themmen) who enjoys watching television 24/7 and only eats his dinners while watching the TV.

After those four tickets were found, Charlie starts to lose hope over not finding the last Golden Ticket and is thinking it won?t be found. His hopes were dashed for a bit when a Peruvian millionaire claimed to have found the last Golden Ticket until the next day when it turned out to be a hoax when Charlie who had just bought a Wonka bar finds the Golden Ticket and on his way home meets a mysterious man named Ansel Slugworth (Gunter Meisner) who is a rival of Willy Wonka?s and wants Charlie to find a new candy called an Everlasting Gobbstopper.

When Charlie and Grandpa Joe attend the opening of the factory, they see Willy Wonka and learn the secrets inside his chocolate factory that includes a chocolate river, chocolate waterfalls, gigantic gummi bears and a whole bunch of great candy. Wonka also shows his guests his workers, little men known as Oompa-Loompas who would sing songs whenever a kid does something wrong that starts out as ?Oompa-Loompa, Doom-pa-de-do/I got another puzzle for you/Oompa-Loompa, Doom-pa-de-di/If you were wise you?d listen to me
?.

The kids would become victims of their own bad habits starting with Augustus?s greediness over food and chocolate where he falls into the chocolate river and gets sucked into a tube where he shoots up into the fudge room. There?s also memorable moments when Violet who eats an experimental gum where she becomes a blueberry. Mike would also fall into his own bratty ways along with Veruca who is a huge standout singing her own greediness over the things she wants which is a great musical moment in the film.


Many of the songs in the film are written by the great musical team of Leslie Briscusse and Anthony Newley who wrote such classics as ?Pure Imagination?, ?I Got A Golden Ticket?, ?I Want It Now?, and the chart-topping ?Candy Man? which was a hit for Sammy Davis Jr. The song ?Pure Imagination? is performed by brilliantly by Gene Wilder and does make you wonder why he doesn?t do any more musicals since he has a wonderful voice. Along with the great musical numbers from Briscusse and Newley, is the brilliant art directing by Harper Goff who makes the factory look like a candy world you wished was real. It looks absoulutly delicious if you havent watched it and makes you wish you were there.

The DVD features for this movie not only includes a photo gallery and the original trailer but a new thirty-minute documentary on the making of the film where Gene Wilder reveals that to this day that whenever kids and parents bump into him, they say ?Hey, it?s Willy Wonka? and it?s a legacy he?s proud of. The kids who were in the film didn?t become drug addicts nor alcoholics, they ended with normal lives as veterinarians and actors and they all appeared in the full-length audio commentary version of the film where they talk about the film including certain scenes like the ?Pure Imagination? scene where the adult Julie Dawn Cole talks about her distaste for chocolate.

It?s surprising how influential this film is. There?s candy that fea
ture Wonka brands and films and TV specials that were influenced by the movie along with the music world. There?s a band called Veruca Salt, Mariah Carey sang a bit of ?Pure Imagination? while Marilyn Manson started his first album with a Wonka reference by singing the line in the Wonka boat scene including remaking the scene for his ?Dope Hat? video with the Oompa-Loompas. Even the recent Alien Ant Farm video for ?Movies? has a Willy Wonka reference where the band dressed up as Oompa-Loompas with a girl turning into a blueberry. For a thirty-year film that has created a legacy that long, it must be a great film.

This is a definitive film to add to anyone?s DVD collection. ?Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory? is a brilliant masterpiece that is enjoyable to this day. It?s an educational film on how to be right and wrong in the world and it?s not just a film for kids but adults as well. I can?t think of anything bad about this movie at all. It?s a flawless masterpiece, goes up there with films like ?The Godfather? and ?Clerks?. It?s that great, buy the DVD or you?ll turn into a big blueberry.

Summary: