Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The playfully warped imagination of director Tim Burton is ideally suited for remaking Roald Dahl's twisted-as-taffy children's tale, and the result is a sourball confection of pure movie magic. Gifted Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland) plays Charlie, the impoverished lad who wins a coveted tour of a mysterious candy plant. Once inside, Burton brings delicious, Technicolor-bright life to Dahl's chocolate rivers, everlasting gobstoppers, magic glass elevators, and Oompa Loompas, while also delighting in dispatching the bratty quartet of other tour winners by way of various candy-making contraptions amusingly befitting their particular disciplinary problems. But the film gets much of its off-kilter energy from Johnny Depp's daffy, benignly sinister Willy Wonka, who is prone to flashbacks of a Burton-esque childhood (a new addition in John August's excellent screenplay). Decked out in a plum velvet evening coat, purple surgical gloves, and a top hat resting on his doll's-head pageboy trim, Depp takes the character in a more psychotically childlike (and possibly Ritalin-addled) direction—to witty effect—than Gene Wilder's turn in 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. While this version has imperfections (why does Burton let composer Danny Elfman run roughshod over the soundtrack?), its mostly winning spell carries all the way to the closing credits. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras on this two-disc deluxe edition include the featurette “Fantastic Mr. Dahl: A Look into the Life of Roald Dahl” (18 min.), a “Different Faces, Different Flavors” casting featurette (11 min.), “Attack of the Squirrels: A Look at the Trained Nut-Sorting Squirrels” (10 min.), “Designing Chocolate” a set design featurette (10 min.), “Becoming Oompa-Loompa: How They Turned One Man into Hundreds of Oompa-Loompas!” (8 min.), a “Chocolate Dreams” production featurette (7 min.), a “Sweet Sounds” featurette on composer Danny Elfman (7 min.), an “Under the Wrapper” visual effects featurette (7 min.), four DVD games (including “Search for the Golden Ticket” and “The Inventing Machine”), and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a colorful remake of a cult classic.] (R. Blackwelder)[Blu-ray Review—Oct. 11, 2011—Warner, 115 min., PG, $19.99—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory features a fine transfer and a DTS-HD 5.1 soundtrack. Extras carried over from previous DVD releases include the “Fantastic Mr. Dahl: A Look Into the Life” featurette on author Roald Dahl (18 min.), a “Different Faces, Different Flavors” casting featurette (11 min.), “Attack of the Squirrels: A Look at the Trained Nut-Sorting Squirrels” (10 min.), “Designing Chocolate” on set design (10 min.), “Becoming Oompa-Loompa: How They Turned One Man Into Hundreds of Oompa-Loompas!” (8 min.), a “Chocolate Dreams” production featurette (7 min.), a “Sweet Sounds” featurette on composer Danny Elfman (7 min.), an “Under the Wrapper” visual effects featurette (7 min.), two pre-visualization segments (4 min.), a European club reel (3 min.), and trailers. New to the Blu-ray release is the “In-Movie Experience” with picture-in-picture featurettes featuring director Tim Burton. Bottom line: Burton's fine remake makes a colorful debut on Blu-ray.]