This is the high-sucrose story of a good little boy who, along with four bad children, gets a much-coveted tour of a mysterious candy factory, says Mark. Roald Dahl's now-classic story is a cheerfully hypocritical children's cautionary tale gone weird. Tim Burton gives us his visually creative approach to the story with effects that frequently do not deliver. Still, it is a tale told with imagination and exuberance.

Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10

As pretty much everybody knows, this is the second filming of Roald Dahl's strange children's story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The previous version was WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971), directed by Mel Stuart with Gene Wilder in the role of Wonka. The story tells of five lucky children who win a tour of a very famous and mysterious chocolate factory run by a more mysterious candy genius.

One after another the children's bad traits come out and lead them to non-fatal but nasty fates. Only sugary-good, family-loving Charlie is not tempted into naughtiness by the factory and eventually he meets a sweet ending. Director Tim Burton previously remade a well-liked film with his PLANET OF THE APES and demonstrated the wrong way to revise a classic. This time he does a much better job.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a story for children that can be fully appreciated only by adults. It is a morality tale that easily segues into all sorts of weirdness. One message it carries is the importance of moderation in eating candy, yet it tempts us with acres of chocolate and other sweets. Even the grass supposedly tastes good to the greedy. But it would be wrong to reduce this story simply to a cautionary tale. Its main reason for existing is mostly to be a canvas to entertain kids with strange ideas. Perhaps its real reason was to lampoon morality tales for children. In any case, it is a reminder that J. K. Rowling was not the first children's writer to use little whimsical vulgarities.

John August's screenplay broadens the story by telling us a little more about who Wonka really is than either the previous film or the book. In this film Wonka is less fantastic and more Freudian. He has issues with his father. And he runs a strange and mystical factory. We do not have factories anything like this in the United States. For one thing, OSHA restrictions would never permit it. Both film versions reveled inside jokes and waggish allusions.

This is certainly the more impressively visual of the two versions. One place where Burton falls down in this film is to rely so frequently on digital effects when he could show us the real thing. He gives us a whole digital factory making digital chocolate. However, the problem with showing digital chocolate is that it looks like it would taste like digital chocolate. There is no substitute for showing the real thing.

There is nothing in this film that looks as tempting as the chocolate in the original, or better still, in Lasse Hallström's 2000 film CHOCOLAT (which also featured Johnny Depp). Nothing beats the real thing. Burton also misses his mark with the chocolate waterfall, repeating a mistake from the previous adaptation. It should have looked like chocolate syrup. Instead he made the falling fluid brown but thin as water. Instead of being tempting it looks more like something unmentionable. And if the factory is as hot as they say, why does nobody sweat?

Joseph Schindelman's illustrations for Dahl's book (as canonical as John Tenniel's for ALICE IN WONDERLAND) show Wonka as a small leprechaun-like figure. Neither film version chose to shrink their lead star. Johnny Depp plays Willie Wonka as a full-sized human who is very androgynous to the point of wearing lipstick and who can behave like a child or an adult. The ambiguity adds to his mystery but not nearly as much as the tiny stature would have. The mystery is to just what his nature is. Is he well meaning or is he a demonic tempter who is trapping naughty children into nasty fates? Perhaps he is some of both. Depp may not be right for the role, but nebbish Gene Wilder was out and out wrong.

Stealing the show from Depp are Deep Roy and David Kelly. In what is perhaps a record for playing multiple characters in a single film, Deep Roy plays 165 different Oompa-Loompas. For those who are curious as I was, Deep Roy is really Gordeep Roy, who was born in Nigeria of Indian parents. Spry David Kelly will be affectionately remembered from WAKING NED DEVINE. Of late if you want to put a mature nasty in a major fantasy film the obvious choice is Christopher Lee.

Here he is Willy Wonka's stern father. I am only saddened he could not be joined by his friend Peter Cushing. (So probably is probably is Lee. And Burton would probably endorse the sentiment.) Freddie Highmore, who played young Peter in FINDING NEVERLAND is likeable as Charlie.

Tim Burton gives us a bizarre and fun adaptation of a weird story. It probably won't be a classic, but it is certainly an improvement on the first film. I rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.

Mark R. Leeper

Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper