"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

Tim Burton's psychedelic take on Roald Dahl's classic book is satisfying and delicious -- or at least completely nutty and fascinating.

By Stephanie Zacharek

Jul 15, 2005 | There are problems here and there with Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," problems that seemed extremely significant to me as I watched the movie but now, two days later, have melted into a syrupy puddle of abstraction. The picture's visual extravagance sometimes has an unpleasantly garish edge, and in places Johnny Depp's mechanically stylized lead performance feels strained and excessively conceptual. But enough about that for now: Did I really see a circle of 100 real, live squirrels perched on high white stools -- the futuristic pinwheel of a room around them looking like something out of "Sleeper" -- tapping walnuts to ascertain their quality and then either opening them gingerly or dismissively tossing them over their tiny shoulders? Did I really see an Oompa Loompa dressed in a witch-doctor outfit, doing a ceremonial jig with a cacao bean on his head? And did I really see a chorus of identical-looking dancers fasten neat little rubber sperm caps on their heads as a preamble to an Esther Williams-style water-ballet routine?

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is absinthe in movie form, a white chocolate space egg of a picture that has a giddy hallucinatory quality in some places and an overcalculated glossiness in others. But for better or worse, it's fascinating. Burton's movie may be truer to the mischievously misanthropic spirit of Roald Dahl's 1964 novel than the 1971 Mel Stuart musical "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" was: Burton picks up on the weird, sadistic streak of Willy Wonka, the reclusive, eccentric owner of a giant candy factory who barely even bothers to pretend to like children. In some ways Burton and Depp take the sadism, and the weirdness, too far, but at least you can't accuse them of trying to file down Dahl's magnificently pointy teeth. The screenplay, by John August (who also wrote the script for Burton's last picture, the treacle-glazed "Big Fish," adapted from Daniel Wallace's novel), has snap and bite and a certain degree of warped loopiness (as when Depp's glassy-eyed Wonka greets his public with a crisply enunciated, "Good morning, starshine -- the earth says hello!"). The dialogue is reasonably faithful to the source material, at least in its tone, and Danny Elfman has written a handful of mildly catchy songs using Dahl's original lyrics, which have to do chiefly with the diabolical pleasures of squeezing spoiled fat kids through giant tubes and turning gum-chewing brats into huge, floating blueberries.

And yet, even with all those good intentions -- and so many liberal dashes of inspired lunacy -- "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" doesn't hang together as well as it should. The movie's opening scenes are in many ways the most engaging: That's when we meet young Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore, of "Finding Neverland," in a performance that's suitably earnest without ever lurching into cuteness), who lives in a small, rickety gray house with his mother and father (Helena Bonham Carter and Noah Taylor) and his four elderly grandparents, who spend nearly all of their time in bed. There's never enough to eat in the Bucket household -- the family subsists on nothing but cabbage soup, which is all Mr. Bucket, who works in a toothpaste factory screwing caps on tubes, can afford. But this is a home where everyone genuinely cares for one another, and young Charlie is particularly close to his Grandpa Joe (the wonderful Irish actor David Kelly), who regales young Charlie with stories of his days long ago as an employee of Willy Wonka, the owner of the most marvelous candy factory in the world, which happens to be located right near the Buckets' house.

But Wonka is a strange guy: Years ago, he was bitterly disappointed by employees who sold his secrets, and so he has closed his factory to the public -- no civilian has been inside it for years. Wonka has announced, though, that he will give away five golden tickets, wrapped randomly in his signature chocolate bars. The recipients of these tickets will be given a tour of the factory and are also eligible for a special prize.

Charlie, who gets only one candy bar a year, for his birthday, has little hope of finding a ticket. But sure enough, through an almost magical turn of events, he gets one. And so this kind, unspoiled, well-mannered child arrives for his day at the factory with the other winners and their parents; his Grandpa Joe accompanies him.

Next Page: Wonka: More Phil Spector than Michael Jackson?

• View blog reactions