Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory

Tim Burton's new version of a classic children's story might delight some, but could leave a bitter taste for others

	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
	Starring Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, AnnaSophia Robb, Julia Winter, Jordan Fry and Philip Wiegratz
	Screenplay by John August
	Based on the book by Roald Dahl
	Directed by Tim Burton
	Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow
	Rated PG
	Opened July 15

By Patrick Lee

harlie Bucket (Highmore) lives in a ramshackle house with his mother, father and two sets of grandparents just down the road from the gate to the most wonderful place ever: the mysterious candy factory run by the reclusive Willy Wonka (Depp). The Buckets seem happy, but they're poor: Dinner is usually a bowl of watery cabbage soup, which they all share.

Charlie's paternal grandfather, Grandpa Joe (David Kelly), used to work for Willy Wonka back in the days when the factory was full of life. But Wonka fired all of the workers 10 years ago and hasn't been seen since.

Then comes news that Willy Wonka will have a contest. He will put a Golden Ticket in each of five chocolate Wonka bars. The person who finds a Golden Ticket will get a chance to visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory and meet the candy mogul himself.

Charlie wants nothing more than to win one of the Golden Tickets. But he and his family watch the television with dismay as, one after another, children around the world find the tickets: gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde (Robb), spoiled Veruca Salt (Winter), television-obsessed Mike Teavee (Fry) and gluttonous Augustus Gloop (Wiegratz).

Charlie has one chance to find a ticket: His birthday, when he gets his annual Wonka bar. His family watches with bated breath as Charlie opens it. The disappointment they feel is matched only by Charlie's. No ticket.

But then something miraculous happens. One snowy day, as Charlie is walking outside the gates to Wonka's chocolate factory, he finds a dollar! It's enough to buy one more Wonka bar. He goes into the next store he sees and buys it, a Wonka Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. When he tears off the wrapper, there's a flash of gold: the last Golden Ticket.

The February day comes. Charlie and Grandpa Joe and the four other children and their parents assemble in the courtyard of Wonka's massive factory. What they see dazzles, then dismays them. Then Willy Wonka welcomes them into his world. And that's only the beginning.

A sweet and sour experience

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Burton, the offbeat director behind Edward Scissorhands and Planet of the Apes, turns his weird sensibilities to Dahl's classic children's story with a new, relatively faithful movie adaptation. Unlike Gene Wilder's beloved 1971 version, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (which Dahl supposedly hated), Burton's remains mostly true to its source material while layering in an entirely new backstory for Depp's Wonka, featuring the ubiquitous Christopher Lee as Wonka's dentist father.

Burton seems like the perfect match for Dahl's at-times-creepy story of Charlie Bucket and his unpleasant companions, and Depp seems like the perfect choice to play the mysterious candy mogul. The movie is gorgeous to look at, mixing Burton's colorful, nightmarish aesthetic with Dahl's out-of-this-world conceptions, like white and dark chocolate swirling together. The cast is outstanding, and the children, led by Finding Neverland's Highmore, are all excellent.

But the movie misfires in other ways that are likely to leave a bitter taste in all but the most devoted Burton/Depp fans.

For starters, Depp has made the curious choice to play Wonka as a fey, pasty, clueless neurotic with a pageboy haircut. Though he and Burton strenuously deny that they intended it, Depp's performance conjures up a real-life reclusive billionaire superstar recently acquitted of child molestation charges, and the unavoidable association makes the skin crawl. (To be fair to both Burton and Depp, except for his look and mannerisms, the Wonka character otherwise in no way resembles Michael Jackson. For one thing, he can't stand children.)

Burton also makes creative decisions that seem at odds with the story's essence: in particular, using pop-culture or contemporary references. In the book, Dahl's Greek-chorus-like verses cap each chapter in which a child gets his, um, just desserts. Burton has had his longtime musical collaborator Danny Elfman set the veto music and sing them in various contemporary styles, from disco to heavy metal, accompanied by Busby-Berkeley-like choreography performed by Deep Roy as the Oompa Loompas. The resulting musical numbers bog down the story and cut against the grain of the movie's fantastical feeling. This wouldn't be such a problem if the music were distinctive, but there's no number here that compares with 1971's "The Candy Man."

Lastly, the dark backstory that Burton and screenwriter August have worked up for Wonka feels like it belongs to another, scarier movie, more Lemony Snicket than Chocolate Factory.

Charlie left me feeling unsettled, as if I'd eaten sweets mixed with jalapeños. But others, particularly children, may find it enchanting. —Patrick

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