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The San Diego Union-Tribune

'Chocolate' sourball

Burton, Depp team up for an empty version of Dahl book


July 14, 2005

Watching director Tim Burton thud through the heavy whimsies of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," I wished Burton could be back working with his first star, Paul Reubens. They made magic of nonsense, and neither has done better work than "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985).

Warner Bros.
Master of a sugar realm, but not always sweet, Wonka (Johnny Depp) presides in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Warner Bros. Acting like a human dip cone, Philip Wiegratz hits the goo in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."
Burton, at least, went on to a major film career, and his pleasures include working with Johnny Depp on "Ed Wood" and "Edward Scissorhands." But this new movie with Depp isn't "Eddie Chocolate," it's a new version of the Roald Dahl fantasy filmed to cultish effect in 1971's "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," with Gene Wilder as Oz-like factory owner Wonka.

Burton has admitted to not being a big fan of that movie, a debatable treat that can put a cavity in your sweet tooth. After a smart start, he blows the chance to make something tougher and edgier of the Dahl story, and he lets the risk-taking Depp drown in the candy vat.

There is fine computer animation of the factory machines during opening credits, and Freddie Highmore as the boy Charlie, all grin and ears, is charming. There is cute stuff with Charlie's family, including his four antique grandparents who share one frumpy bed (the cutest is David Kelly, who makes old age seem like a happy professional calling).

Wonka, who is very neurotic, fires Charlie's dad and the other workers mired in what appears to be a Dickens write-off of Hershey, Pa. They're replaced by clones called an Oompa Loompa, acted by a petite chunk named Deep Roy who looks like a minor hood from Scorsese films and brings little to the story except costume changes.


"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"
Rated PG; Opens tomorrow

By then, "Charlie" is melting. The four other kids who luck into a pass to visit the giant factory and win a big surprise are dull types, including a spoiled TV addict, a contest obsessive, a snotty Brit (James Fox is her obviously bewildered dad) and a fat German boy with an appetite worthy of the Wehrmacht in 1940. Highmore gets to monopolize the appeal but doesn't have scene-stealing instincts.

Like the coyly conniving Wilder, Depp's Wonka guides them around the factory, into setups that could be Busby Berkeley trying to boost candy counter sales. Burton veteran Danny Elfman composed tunes that are meant to spoof the infantile songs in theme parks, but they only achieve that level of irritation, not satire.

It might nearly work if Depp were in top form. He isn't. He seems like a Victorian Michael Jackson who furtively desires to be Martha Raye. His voice is high and slurpy, perhaps the call of a Junior Mint to its mate. He isn't frightening or funny, just weird (Christopher Lee plays his dentist father with absurdly marcelled hair, and Helena Bonham Carter as Charlie's mom matches that with bad false teeth).

The movie has visual morsels and a showboat budget, but its truest words are spoken by one of the kids: "What's the point of all this?" Even airy entertainment has to connect on some simple level of plot or sense. Burton seems to have rented out his sizable talent for a meaningless remake of an old movie that has a following but is a dead end creatively.

When he resorts to a jokey "2001" salute and we hear the old "monolith" anthem again, you might cram a chocolate bar not into your mouth but your eyes and ears. It beats the amusement on screen.


 A Warner Bros. release. Director: Tim Burton. Writer: John August. Cast: Johnny Depp, David Kelly, Freddie Highmore. Christopher Lee, James Fox, Deep Roy, Helena Bonham Carter, Missi Pyle, Philip Wiegratz. Running time: 1 hr., 53 min.

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© Copyright 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.