I can’t say if I’m a Harry Potter fan or not. At least one of the kids is, as he’s read the books (even if he’s not supposed to have read all of them yet). The other one is, because his brother is, but he’s actually getting at the age where he’s starting to be contrary about it, so I’m not even sure how to classify him.

Whatever the case, I think the movies in the series are starting to fall into a bit of a rut. Either that, or I am. I can certainly admit to enjoying the first, second, and probably even the third in the series. But by the time the four came along, it was getting to be a bit much. I think it had to do with the size of the stories. The Sorcerer’s Stone was three-hundred something pages. The Order of the Phoenix was nearly 900! At some point, it’s just too much for my brain to handle.

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Edward Norton stars in this film, where he is billed only as The Narrator. We don’t actually ever get to hear his name, which is interesting, but strangely, you don’t find yourself missing out on that fact (or at least, I didn’t).

When we meet him, he is simply a body in motion, moving through airports, living a life that most of us can associate with, finding some measure of satisfaction through filling out his apartment with items in the IKEA catalog, slowly making where he lives into a reflection of what you see on each page.

And then on one of these trips, he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). That’s when everything changes.

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This animated (clay-mated?) film stars Wallace and his loyal dog Gromit, who as a team form Anti-Pesto Humane Pest Control, dedicated to keeping the vegetables safe from those who would eat them prior to the giant vegetable-growing contest, held annually on the gounds of Tottington Estate.

In practice, this means that they catch rabbits before they have a chance to eat people’s vegetables, but they don’t kill the rabbits. Instead, they keep them in pens beneath their house. That generally is okay, but now something has changed.

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Right from the beginning, you can tell that this is different from the 1971 classic, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In fact, it’s actually more reminiscent of the 1989 version of Batman because of director Tim Burton’s influence. That’s not entirely a bad thing. Batman was a classic in its own right.

But this telling quickly diverges from the 1971 version while at times remaining faithful to that wonderful tale. If you’ve seen that one (and most of us have), you’ll recognize it just about everywhere. And while I’m a big fan of Johnny Depp, let’s face it – he’s no Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka.

Burton’s taste for the bizarre comes through in stellar fashion, and for the most part it works, but rather than Wilder’s childlike sense of wonder in the original, we get a bizarre psychosis here, and it where the original worked wonders, it just doesn’t work here at all.

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I recall watching this on TNT (I think it was TNT) when released and thinking that it was pretty good. I don’t think I had seen it since. I’m glad that we watched it again, because it really is quite an excellent telling of the tale. Even Kenneth Branagh, who I don’t really like, fit perfectly. Normally I find him just a little too self-absorbed. In this case, that’s exactly what was needed. He directed as well, and did a fine job.

Meanwhile, the always excellent Robert de Niro ably filled the body of the creature and actually gave the role some life. Uh, so to speak.

For those who aren’t familiar with the tale, Victor Frankenstein has gone to university to study medicine, only to become obsessed with bestowing life on dead tissue, because his own mother died in childbirth. Unfortunately his own brilliance becomes his downfall, as he spirals into the world of his own making, and when he does create this life, it is to see his own life fall apart around him.

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