Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Widescreen Special Edition)

The HD version of this movie is great! The colors are amazing and vibrant. You can even see the sparkles in Willy Wonka's vest... I never knew they were there in the past. The extra content is not HD but that is ok.
The movie is one of my 3 year old daughters favorites. She loves the songs and the Oompa Lompas.

Truly a fun romp through Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory as children learn some lessons about how not to be little beasts. All those kids were old enough to know right from wrong, were rude to their parents and all others in their vacinity, refused instruction a got their just deserts. I'm sure they all came out OK in the end. They and their parents needed a little lesson. Those reviewers outraged by their fate have never been babysitters or had a belly laugh at a Warner Bros. cartoon.

Hint: It's not real, and kids today figure that out pretty easily, they are much more sophisticated than we were.

But I have deducted a star for that LSD trip boat ride! What a meaningless horror trip! Can anyone explain what THAT is about?? Completely spoils what could otherwise be a nearly flawless flick.

We love the movie--it has been a favorite in our family since our first child was born five years ago. When our old VHS copy wore out, I immediately signed on to Amazon and purchased a DVD. We frankly didn't expect it to be any different, but WOW, the colors, the picture quality, all of the original movie was just plain BETTER to watch. In addition, the special features, especially the interviews with the stars all grown up today--incredibly interesting! Even my 2 kids enjoy watching the extra features on the movie.
I highly recommend it, even if you have the old movie somewhere in your video collection. You won't regret it.

Ahh...The good ol' days. The Patriarch remembers fondly the days of his youth when he was forced to watch this film in his local Thought-Control-and-Processing-Center to wit I mean public school.

The first strikingly strange thing about this movie is the fact that it takes place in no specific time period. I mean, it was made in `71, it has 60s/70s and slang, modern automobiles, and yet Charlie's family lives like 19th century proletariat laborers. They live in a one room shack where all four grandparents live in a communal bed, the mom works in a sweat-shop laundry, and they all dress like chimney sweeps. It looks like they use the same sets and wardrobe from Oliver, which they probably did.

If you're still awake after the somniferous credit sequence then you'll get to witness a frightening 1920s era candyman/soda jerk. These obviously no longer existed in the early seventies, so it only brings up more questions about the era this movie takes place in. The scary bachelor candyman now throws candy at the kids and gives them the run of the place. I fail to see how this will help his profits. He sings the children the first song of the film, the aptly-titled Candyman. Looking in the window in silent reproach is Charlie Bucket. (NOT pronounced `bouquet')

Charlie always has this look on his face like he just watched his dog get hit by a truck and dragged down the street. Of course if you lived like Charlie, wouldn't you? An unusual glimmer of hope enters Charlie's life when eccentric, reclusive Candy maker Willy Wonka holds a contest to give five lucky winners a tour of his factory and a lifetime supply of chocolate. Don't ask how much a lifetime supply of chocolate is, since chocolate is not needed to support human life it may very well be 0 bars of chocolate. The bigger question is just how winning this contest would help Charlie's miserable life get any better. It seems the logical course of action would be to sell the golden ticket to an eccentric millionaire.

Wonka-fever grips the world, the first winner is a family of German stereotypes, the Gloops. The Gloops will eat anything including microphones!!! Oh well, when your country stages a failed world conquest it just goes with the territory. Winner #2 is rich heiress and spoiled brat Veruca Salt. Veruca's father has his whole plant ripping up Wonka bars in order to find the ticket. Just why he has a 1940s era sweatshop is a mystery. Winner #3 is Violet Beauregard and her father used car salesman Sam B. She's a plump loud mouth that is a self-proclaimed gum chewer. Meanwhile Charlie's mother has the nerve to sing this song, Cheer Up Charlie to him. Yeah, cheer up, Charlie, you've got a big bowl of cabbage-water coming to you when you get home. Winner #4 is Mike Teevee who, ironically enough, is obsessed with TV. He's watching a colour TV so I guess this movie takes place in the same time period as it was filmed, it's best just to ignore all the glaring anachronisms.

Charlie opens a few Wonka bars only to have what little hope remained in his Pollyanna optimism crushed; but, a little sewer-grate picking scores Charlie an unidentifiable amount of money that he blows on more Wonka bars, even though the contest is supposedly over. Yeah, blow your money on candy Charlie, we don't mind eating cabbage water for another month. He picks up one just for Grandpa Joe, a good deed which is rewarded with the final golden ticket. The factory tour is, conveniently enough, held the next day. So Charlie and Grandpa Joe put on their Sunday best and head out to the factory where they are greeted by Wonka.

Wonka is insane.

His factory is a sadistic funhouse that is all one inside joke for Wonka's unhealthy amusement. Speaking of inside jokes, nearly everything he says is an inside joke, usually a quote from an obscure piece of literature. After a little psychological torture, Wonka lets them in to this open garden area where everything is `eatable.' Here we're introduced to the Oompa Loompas, an evil race of singing, know-it-all midgets. In this area we have our first causality, Augustus Gloop. He accidentally falls into the chocolate river and only Charlie tries to save him. Wonka is too concerned with the cleanliness of his chocolate river. He must not be too concerned as he sails a boat, the Wonkatania, through it in the next scene!

Wonka takes them through a tunnel in the Wonkatania that can somehow emulate the effects of acid. Wonka has the boat go hundreds of miles per hour as he rants on like a madman, all for his own twisted amusement. In the next room Wonka throws a bunch of foreign objects into his candy vats, such as a pair of tennis shoes, a winter coat, and an alarm clock. Here Wonka introduces his chewing gum that tastes like a full course meal. While I don't find the idea of chewing gum that tastes like lamb gravy appetizing, to each his own. Violet, the gum chewer of the bunch takes a piece without permission and is turned into a blueberry. According to the Oompa Loompa's song, her only sin is gum chewing. Is that really that bad a thing?

Now Wonka leads the remaining unsuspecting children to a room with geese that lay golden eggs. Veruca decides she has to have one. She's wanted everything she's seen so far, but she just HAS to have one of these. So much so that she goes into song in which she expounds upon her unfettered avarice. And uses some darn interesting words to do so.

"I want a feast/I want a bean-feast(?)/Cream buns and donuts and fruitcake with no nuts So good you could go nuts/I want a ball/ I want a party/Pink macaroons and a million balloons And performing baboons(!?)/ and give it to me Now!/I want the world/I want the whole world/I want to lock it all up in my pocket it's my bar of chocolate/Give it to me now!/I want today/I want tomorrow/I want to wear them like braids in my hair(??) And I DON'T WANT TO SHARE THEM!!!

*She struggles to regain her composure

I want a party with roomfuls of laughter /10,000 tons of ice-cream/And if I don't get the things that I'm after/ I'm going to screeeeeaaaaam!!!"

And with that she goes on a rampage mussing up Wonka's factory before finally falling down the garbage shoot. I think Veruca actually had the right idea. She's like Donald Trump only young, a girl, and with good hair. In a world of Paris Hiltons, here is an heiress that wants to make herself more rich instead of just having s e x with everybody and driving drunk. And can you imagine Veruca going on some silly photo-op journey to Africa to help the less fortunate? Of course not!

As the movie draws closer to its end, I think now is a good time to contemplate the message of our dear fable...Do not cross Wonka! As a matter of fact if you ever encounter a man in a full length purple coat, top hat, and cane, run! Just run! What he's selling may look good on the outside, but on the inside the sweet candy is rotten and filled with all kinds of sickly critters. Beware.

I love this movie from my childhood. I used to watch this everytime I stayed home sick from school. I guess you could say it was my chicken soup I always felt better afterwards.