Roald Dahl Film Adaptations: Ranked From Worst To Best

3. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

The only Roald Dahl book to be filmed twice (and arguably the writer's best and most iconic novel), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seemed an obvious fit for Tim Burton's dark sensibilities and heightened stylised worlds. Burton's film (book title very deliberately restored) corrects many of the issues that Dahl had with the earlier film, while making a few strange adaptation choices of its own. With the focus restored to Charlie, the film succeeds in having an impressively talented child cast. It is no surprise that while the earlier film's child stars did little else, Burton's stars, in particular Freddie Highmore (Charlie) and AnnaSophia Robb (Violet), have gone on to successful teenage and young adult careers. Of course their performances in appearing awestruck by their surroundings are helped by some huge, incredible, practical sets. The art direction is stunning with the chocolate factory setting allowing free reign to Burton's imagination in an almost sickening array of colour saturation that visually matches the mouthwatering treats inside. Set pieces like the squirrel sequence (disappointingly missing from the Gene Wilder version) creatively mix practical and digital effects (including trained squirrels!) to impressive results. Burton's long term musical collaborator Danny Elfman, meanwhile, is also at his most unfettered in a series of genre hopping musical numbers. Unfortunately, another frequent collaborator, Johnny Depp, is on weirdo autopilot in a slightly ill judged performance as Willy Wonka. The film further slips up in giving him an entirely superfluous backstory and dentist father (mostly an excuse for a Christopher Lee cameo). Neither ...Chocolate Factory, then, is flawless, but Burton's less loved version actually has plenty more to recommend it.