Not to sound insensitive or anything, but really, is anyone *not* aware of breast cancer at this point? Is someone going to see this and say, "Huh, that breast cancer must be pretty nasty stuff if it makes people dance around in pink gloves. Funny that I'd never heard anyone talk about it before." I wish they'd taken the five bucks they wasted on those gloves and donated it to the Komen charity or something.
Whether or not you consider it a remake of the 1971 film, there's really no comparison. The first film is far and away superior. Burton hasn't made a good film since 'Ed Wood,' and the fact that he's gone away from making his own original material just proves that his creative well is dry.
I love Johnny Depp, but his performance here is atrocious. Gene Wilder inhabited the role perfectly, with just the right balance of screwball comedy and barely-contained menace. Depp doesn't even come close to finding those notes.
And for those who complain that the 1971 film deviates too far from the book, well, the screenplay was written by none other than Mr. Roald Dahl himself, so apparently the author though that the novel as written needed some modification if it was to translate to the screen well. Judging by these two films, it's hard to argue with that.
@Travis: It's a question of scale. The split of Pangaea took millions upon millions of years. Everest rose over millions of years. The last great ice age took place over tens of thousands of years. These are scales at which life can adapt, evolve, and maintain some sort of macro-equilibrium. The great cataclysms of today's changes in climate are occurring in the span of *decades.*
Will life, in some form, survive our onslaught? Certainly. Are we in the midst of a massive extinction event brought about in great measure by human activity? Also certainly. Do we face ecological catastrophe which endangers humankind as well? One would hope that we are adaptable enough to find a way to survive, but first we need to acknowledge that we are, in fact, the genesis of the problem before we can find a solution.
I love Johnny Depp, but his performance here is atrocious. Gene Wilder inhabited the role perfectly, with just the right balance of screwball comedy and barely-contained menace. Depp doesn't even come close to finding those notes.
And for those who complain that the 1971 film deviates too far from the book, well, the screenplay was written by none other than Mr. Roald Dahl himself, so apparently the author though that the novel as written needed some modification if it was to translate to the screen well. Judging by these two films, it's hard to argue with that.
Will life, in some form, survive our onslaught? Certainly. Are we in the midst of a massive extinction event brought about in great measure by human activity? Also certainly. Do we face ecological catastrophe which endangers humankind as well? One would hope that we are adaptable enough to find a way to survive, but first we need to acknowledge that we are, in fact, the genesis of the problem before we can find a solution.