There was some wonderful imagery in the movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The boy playing Charlie is really endearing.
But once we meet Willy Wonka the movie really dives. We lose touch with the human stories - Charlie and his family, the other kids' character flaws, Willy's aspirations.
Johnny Depp's interpretation of Willy is just too weird and distracting, and the children and their parents are made too grotesque to be really human. In the end, we find Willy as this flawed ante-hero who needs to be saved by Charlie. The innocent child becomes the hero for the scarred adult, rescuing him from his disfunctional past.
There was a good moral that comes through in the end, but the telling was disappointing.
On the other had, "Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events" really plays the exaggeration of its characters perfectly and beautifully.
The story is caricatured in a fascinating way, and the characters display total humanness in the middle of it. The surroundings and settings are extreme, but it is a very human character story, told in an entertaining way.
