A feature-length advertisement for the new opiate of the masses!

When I was a child I quite liked Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. However, I was a fool! In my childish naivete, I completely overlooked the story's capitalist underpinnings, unaware that it was yet another cog in the consumerist propaganda machine.

Looking at the story with a more critical eye, it is clearly a device to ensnare a younger generation into the ranks of the mindless consumer drones, who all too willingly accept the idea that they need chocolate or luxury goods.

So they made a film out of the book, of course, in order to reach that highly profitable market too stupid to read. Not content with that effort, the investor class have ordered an updated version starring career capitalist-apologist Johnny Depp in the role of debauched, decadent tycoon Willy Wonka.

This is a tale of a chocolate conglomerate, a loving case-study of an arch-oppressor of the proletariat. As such, it goes out of its way to portray the archetypal international mega-corporation as a whimsical and benevolent force for the welfare of humanity. In short, it does nothing but shoehorn the harsh reality of cutthroat globalization into the palatable formula of a fairy tale.

To the mesmerized audience, Willie Wonka appears an eccentric but essentially harmless inventor. But the sheen of revisionist digital effects cannot obscure the harsh consequences of the concentration of capital as we witness the dismissal of the entire workforce in favor of Oompah Loompahs, a strange and clearly devolved version of humanity willing to work for pittance. Clearly we are seeing the capitalists' idealized view of the worker.

Unforgivably, the film glosses over the sweat-shop conditions in which the Oompah Loompahs toil. Are we to assume that the wholesale relocation and disruption of an indigenous culture warrants nothing more than laughter and amusement (as the filmmakers suggest in their overblown previews)? Surely here was a chance examine the whole flyblown, rotting system of capitalism and its associated exploitation of disadvantaged populations. Where were the efforts to unionize the Oompah Loompahs, to improve their labor conditions, to disrupt the profiteering of the chocolate barons?

Instead the Oompah Loompahs are glossed over as nothing more than eye-candy, improbably providing the fanfare for Wonka's excesses -- no doubt impelled to simpering dance and song by near-toxic concentrations of sugar and chocolate coursing through their blood.

As a final insult, the film manages to portray the solid and socially useful dental profession as a cold, authoritarian, killjoy conspiracy, while lionizing the purveyors of saccharine, non-nutritive sweets as the vanguard of free-thinkers and inspired artists.

In summation, the film is drivel masquerading as a family viewing. When, oh when, will they stop foisting such @#$% on us? Not until we shake off our candy-induced stupor can we break free of the sugary residue that keeps us glued to our seats.

Sadly, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is merely a reflection of the times we live in. I give it 6 out of 10.