Everybody's a critic: 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'

Two stars (out of four)

Never having seen the original "Willie Wonka," I was prepared to be thoroughly entertained with this movie.

Just in case my viewpoint was a little confused, I took my grandsons, Zach (13) and Dylan (6), to reinforce my opinion. They have the video of the original movie and love every moment of it.

However, I was confused. I was never sure which movie I was watching -- was it "The Wizard of Oz" with all the munchkins, or "A Christmas Carol" with Charlie, alias Tiny Tim, and his family? I struggled to find much originality in this movie with its "dreamlike" and "fantasy" smatterings throughout the show.

To be fair, the theater was full, 40 percent of the audience were adults, and not a peep was heard from anyone except laughter wherever appropriate. So between my disenchanted rating of 1 and my grandsons' enthusiastic rating of 3, I would give this movie a shaky 2.

-- Laverne Smith, administrative assistant

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Four stars (out of four)

This is one of my family's favorite movies from the 1970s. So you can believe that it was planned a long time ago to grab my chocolate-loving teenage daughter to see this top-notch movie that we have enjoyed since her early childhood days!

Aside from a few missing story connections and director Tim Burton and Depp conspiring to turn Wonka into a wacko, the tone of the script owes more than a little to Wilder's 1971 movie (minus all that sorrowful singing, thankfully). And it truly burrows deeper into the book and the stage play while fully providing much entertainment for the whole family.

An added bonus is that the special effects are super-cool, kid-friendly and positively hunger-inducing, and the Oompa-Loompas' song-and-dance routines are a riot. Author Roald Dahl, were he still with us, would be pleased. His playful morality tale is respected here, and the lessons he sought to teach arrive alive and kicking, with a scrumdiddlyumptious bar of chocolate always at the ready to help the medicine go down.

-- Donna Sternickle, business owner