Probably the most underrated movie of Burton’s career—including by Burton himself, whose unspecified difficulties making and marketing this movie with Disney seemed to inspire both his longest-ever break between features (over five years) and the back-to-practical approach he took in the long-gestating Beetlejuice sequel. But just as much as that movie, Dumbo reflects a sense of artistic strife not always present in Burton’s earlier movies; it’s literally about a wealthy showman (Michael Keaton) taking a scrappy hand-made circus and absorbing it into a massive theme park. Burton all-stars Keaton, DeVito, and Green all do fine work here, and the classic Dumbo story survives its live-action translation in large part because, as with Alice, Burton is endeavoring to expand and sequelize the original story. It should be craven, but instead it’s his gentlest movie, while still finding room for gimcrack carnival-show monster rides.
11. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, Adam Godley, Johnny Depp, David Kelly, Jordan Fry, Freddie Highmore, 2005, (c) Warner Brothers/courtesy Everett Collection©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection
It’s not better than the original—meaning the Roald Dahl book of the same name, which typical of Dahl is a tough nut to crack, adaptation-wise, given how strongly it resists sentiment and embraces invention, wordplay, and tall-tale whimsy. It is, however, better than Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the beloved children’s classic that moves even further afield from the source material, despite Dahl’s screenplay credit. Burton’s version stays truer to the lead characters: Charlie is more steadfast in his innocence, which any screenwriting manual will say makes him a less dynamic character, advice that Burton ignored if he ever heard; and Wonka, as played by Depp, is more eccentric and potentially maddening. Depp makes such off-putting choices that, frankly, you have to hand it to him; it’s true to the spirit of a character with an ambivalent-at-best relationship to his grasping child customers. Depp isn’t as charming as the Gene Wilder version, but he adds a much-needed sourness to this sweets-heavy story. If the daddy-issues backstory feels tacked-on—like screenwriting-manual advice that Burton inexplicably heeded—isn’t it worth it to hear Christopher Lee menacingly intone the word “caramels”?
10. Big Eyes (2014)
BIG EYES, Amy Adams, as Margaret Keane, 2014. ph: Leah Gallo/©Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection©Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection
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