Negative Positive
Title: Saccharine
Review: This reminds me of Gus Van Sant's remake of PSYCHO...what little there is that is any good here is lifted wholesale from the original (Burton claimed to greatly dislike Mel Stuart's version, yet he borrows quite liberally), and otherwise adds absolutely nothing. Johnny Depp is awful, and the woeful addition of a backstory, to put it diplomatically, defeats the purpose of Wonka by humanizing him. This version robs the Dahl book and Stuart movie of all the precious moral and otherworldly ambiguities of Wonka, turning him into a pathetic recluse whose cure can only be provided, in Burton's version, by the magic of family. Nauseating.
Is the review positive or negative? 