"It's like looking in a mirror. Only... not." [John Travolta in Face/Off]

Let me start off with I liked it. It's good fun, and Johnny Depp is amazing, not so much in the character he portrays here, but in the change he makes in coming from Capt. Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean to Willy Wonka. But beyond liking it for what it is, I'll be rendering the dissenting opinion overall.

We all know the story. Once upon a time there was a candy maker called Willy Wonka who produced the most amazing candies. His factory, though, was beset by spies from his fiercest competitors, and he was forced to cease production, lay off all of his workers, and shut down the factory. Many years passed, and at a time when Charlie Buckets is about 10 years old, the factory begins producing candy again, and the candy is even better than before. And to boot, Willy Wonka himself sports a contest - he insert golden tickets into 5 of his hundreds of thousands of candy bars, and 5 lucky children win the opportunity to tour the factory.

Charlie's story is simpler. He is very poor, living with a family comprised of mom, dad and all four of his grandparents, all of whom have not risen out of bed in many a year. Charlie dreams of the chocolates from the Wonka factory, and deeply desires to be one of the children who wins a tour.

This rendering, on its own is enjoyable. It's a straight forward story of what happens when one child is good, and well balanced and we assume, well rounded. The other children in the piece leave much to be desired, and a lot of fun can be had as all of the children, and their parents, get their just desserts, as it were. The factory, which itself must be considered a character in its own right, is as marvelous a place as one can dream. The chocolate waterfall, the room of edible delights, even the Oompa Loompas, create a world in which we all dream to live.

Despite the movie being one that can be enjoyed, and recommended which I do, I found elements of it lacking. Johnny Depp does a wonderful job at playing the quirky Wonka, a genius in the true, absent minded sense of the word. He shows us how a person with a mind that is constantly creating can be distracted with itself. But Wonka knows a pain - a secret he has never shared (until now).  And sadly, I never truly felt his pain. In fact, I never truly identified with nor felt sympathy towards Willy Wonka. He was a man who knew what was fun, but never enjoyed that fun, or at least so it came across to me. Willy Wonka for me was a curiosity, one well worth observing, but like the most frivolous of candies, he did not stick with me once the treat was gone.

Charlie Buckets also seemed detached from his pain. He seemed to just be moving through his life, and Freddie Highmore, who played Charlie, never impressed upon me that he was attached to his dream of the wonderfulness of Wonka. While he does deliver his strongest moment well, most other things leading up to that moment are almost throwaways. He plays the weakest of straight men to the looniness that is Wonka.

I read somewhere once that in movies, the most effective villains are the ones who even in their villainy can strike a sympathetic chord in the viewer. Three of the remaining four children failed to do this with me. I found Veruca Salt to be the most despicable - the penultimate example of a spoiled child gone horribly wrong - the worst nightmare of most parents.  Mike Teavee was also most obnoxious and annoying, in a truly know-it-all kind of way, and yet I felt his shortcomings were real bids for attention. Augustus Gloop was simply a slob, and left nothing to be desired other than a real want to make him exercise. Violet Beauregarde was the only one of the five who made me feel something positive for her. Clearly driven by her mother, she still retained something good within.

The one true character who made me see what Willy Wonka, his chocolate and his factory were all about, was Grandpa Joe. Grandpa Joe once worked in the factory, and it is through his eyes and memory that we know what magic there was. Children find a magic in candy, and what these children failed to convey comes out the clearest and strongest in Grandpa Joe.

I was told that this version, and now I nod to there being another version, was closer to the original book, in which Wonka is a bit more sinister. I might agree to this. Willy Wonka knew that there were ... dangers inerrant in his factory. As he should, he put up only the most perfunctory objections to the bad behavior of the children about him. And in the end, he seemed to me to take malicious glee in how they were rewarded for their actions. Yes, I find somewhat unbecoming for a man who has dedicated his life to making children happy.

The last moments of the movie play the weakest of all for me. there is no true, emotionally satisfying end to the story - it actually rather peters out. Charlie has his moment of strength of character, and then we tie up Wonka's sadness in a manner almost all too trite and cliche. And from there, the movie suddenly ends, with only the most perfunctory nod to the true victory of the piece.

I wanted to like it, after all of the positive word of mouth I'd heard, and ultimately I do. I say go see it, if you haven't, and enjoy it, but don't expect it to stay with you for more than the curiosity that it is. Because it did not hit many marks for me on many levels, I can give it only 2 and one half beakers.

The buzz on the street about this movie is not good, hence I went into the theater determined to dislike this offering. And find that I must once again register the dissenting opinion.

Let's establish right away that this movie is not high art. It is not academy award material, nor is it fraught with deep philosophical meaning. What it is, is a story about four people who become different, and what they do about it.

The set up is simple. On a mission aboard a space station to study a cosmic cloud, five people are bombarded by life-changing radiation, and come out with fantastic powers. I suppose one true question, even from the original source material, is why do these five, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, her brother Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm and Victor Von Doom all get different powers. I don't recall if this is ever explained in the comics - there certainly is no explanation offered in the movie. They return to earth where their abilities begin to manifest over time. Richards, Grimm and the two Storms are good people, Von Doom is not, and hence lies the conflict.

Ioan Gruffudd, who plays Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, with the ability to stretch his body to almost limitless proportions, with a far away look in his eye that seems distant even for the most absent-minded of professors. He is driven by a desire to check, double check and quadruple check facts before proceeding with even the simplest ask. I did find him to be the weakest of the four, almost capable of being lost in the background when compared to the others.

Jessica Alba plays Sue Storm, love interest to Richards, and is The Invisible Girl. Alba was for me one of the more interesting characters, and the one best able to accept what had happened and to be willing to move on. Johnny Storm The Human Torch, was played with by Chris Evans, tiresome after a while as the, well, hot headed, no holds barred youth with no restraint. His angst wasn't deep enough, and he came across as terribly shallow.

For me the real down-to-earth portrayal came from Michael Chiklis, who played Ben Grimm, aka the Thing, a human transformed into a near indestructible rock like creature. It is through him that we truly see the struggle of becoming something different, and the inability to cope with what he has become. Chiklis was perhaps the most 3-dimensional of all the characters portrayed, and the easiest with which to identify as an audience member. We've all been different; we've all wanted to be more like everyone else, and Grimm's struggle and desire to do so rings the most recognizable chord.

Victor Von Doom was played by Julian McMahon, and here we have a villain driven by something other than the usual greed or lust for power. We expect that from our villains, sane or not, and so it is an almost daring departure to present someone driven solely by jealousy and revenge. McMahon hails in part from the television series Charmed, on which he played a powerful demon, so this role in some parts comes more or less natural to him. While it's clear from the start of the movie that this is the bad guy, it's still a nice ride to see how he, in the end, manifests and brings the movies central theme more to the core.

The difficult thing about a movie like this, especially one that is an ensemble piece, is I think we tend to remember the composite of what such characters are like now - fully developed and as an integrated whole, and we forget what the beginning is like. This movie is all about the beginning, and as such is truly the movie of exposition. It should have been made to stand on it's own, and it is not truly capable of doing so - it feels incomplete and like there should be more. I fear there will not be.

The presentation, though, is fun, and more true to the original source material than some things I've seen. It stands better than the ill fated Batman and Robin and in its own way better than Daredevil. I did not find the special effects distracting, and indeed used as well as they needed to be - never overplayed nor for me used in place of a good piece of the story telling. Some of the effects, though, left some to be desired, particularly Reed Richards. The others, though, more than made up for these shortcomings.

In the end, I liked the movie, and my seven year old loved it, reminding me that sometimes these types of movies aren't aimed at those of us jaded by life, but at the more innocent and accepting members of our societies. Perhaps if we all could be a little more open to believing and less critical, we'd find even this bit of fluff more palatable. I know I did, but the critical part of me still nets this one only 2 beakers.

If i am to review any movie this year that I've seen, this would be the one. I once wrote of my deep and abiding love for the original television series - it colored my view of what witches were, and was a terrific comedy to boot. Given my life-long attraction to that show, how could I miss the movie?

First - the disappointment. When I first heard about it, I was told that Nicole Kidman was doing a remake of the old television show. I was quite excited, as I thought the casting of Kidman in the title role of Samantha Stevens was a perfect fit. Sadly, to a small degree, the movie is not a remake of the series. It's one of those movies whose only relationship to the original source material is they share the same name.

Kidman plays Isabel Bigelow, whom we learn early is an actual witch, and much like her predecessor, wants to be "normal". Will Ferrell plays Jack Wyatt, an actor whose career is failing and is seeking to re-energize his career by starring in a re-tooling of the classic television series. As a bolster to his ego, he picks the unknown Bigelow to be his television wife, not knowing of course that she is a real witch. Wacky hijinks ensue, as a friend would say.

Now comes the good. The hijinks aren't so wacky, and while Ferrell does a fair amount of physical comedy, for which he is apparently known, he does deliver a good performance of a man being Darrin Stevens in "real" life. But it's the Darrin we always wondered whether existed or not. Ferrell plays this Darrin-like role with gusto, grabbing as much of the spotlight that he can. He's slightly over the top, which works well with Kidman's slightly underplayed performance. She is calm and poised, and playing the Samantha-like character with a calmness and poise that would do Elizabeth Montgomery proud.

True to the series, and almost unheard of in today's special effects laden Hollywood, this tale does not rely on the magic to tell the story, or to grab your attention. Magic is there, and it's truly comical to watch the depiction of how it was done in the series standing shoulder to shoulder with modern depictions. But the effects are not splashy, and rely mostly on camera and editing tricks rather than elaborate CGI and overdone use of blue screen. Clearly everyone involved remembered that less is more, and so gave us little magic and more people.

Rounding out the cast are Michael Caine, as Isabel's father, and cutting as dapper a swath as the original Dad-to-Samantha, Maurice Evans. And eerily reminiscent of Agnes Moorehead is Shirley MacLaine, playing the Endora character on the set and mother figure to Kidman's character.

But truly this is Kidman's show, and what the movie lacks in simplistic charm from the 60's, Kidman manages to capture in her character, who is filled with ideals and dreams and quite a bit of naiveté. This last is almost unbelievable in a witch as long lived as they are purported to be per the original series, and yet I found Kidman delivering her naiveté with an earnestness that made me believe in her youth and inexperience. And log under the eerie category the bit of resemblance between Kidman and Elizabeth Montgomery and you'll find me mostly satisfied.

But only mostly. I came out of the theater mostly okay, but slightly unsettled and I soon realized why. This whole vehicle would have worked for me better had it been an actual remake of the original, with today's advances in special effects. I felt as though they'd teased me with tons of references to the original, but never delivered on a promise. I enjoyed what I saw, and longed at the same time for so much more.

To date, I've either loved or hated any attempt to remount one of these old series and make them work for today's audiences. This is perhaps the first one I've seen that I would say was only so - so. Neither truly good nor truly bad, it just is. I think it could have been so much more, and am happy it was not so much less. Give it 3 beakers, and a good look on a lazy Saturday afternoon.