Fairfield-Echo.com

'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' lacks wonder, warmth

Johnny Depp can do anything, it seems, from the mock-heroic Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean" to a mincing, angora sweater-addicted movie director in "Ed Wood."

Anything, that is, except be a better Willy Wonka than Gene Wilder.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' B- The verdict: The movie — and Depp's performance — is on a constant sugar high, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Director: Tim Burton Starring: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Deep Roy Run time: 106 minutes Release date: July 15, 2005 Rating: PG for quirky situations, action and mild language. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

No matter how strenuously Depp and director Tim Burton have stressed that their movie, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," is based on Roald Dahl's 1964 children's fantasy and not on Wilder's 1971 movie, "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory," the specter of the earlier film remains. One can't help noting that the parade of little people who played Wilder's orange-hued Oompa-Loompas has been replaced by a single miniaturized actor, the seductively named Deep Roy, rendered in multiples. Conversely, the chocolate factory's fantasy candyland looks much the same in both pictures.

And there's the inescapable question of Depp vs. Wilder, the comparison being questionable indeed.

To refresh the memories of those who haven't read the book or only heard about the first movie, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is about a poor but plucky English boy, Charlie Bucket, quite marvelously played by Freddie Highmore, who co-starred with Depp in "Finding Neverland." Charlie, our narrator explains, isn't smarter or stronger or more clever than other children, but he is "the luckiest boy in the entire world. He just didn't know it yet."

Charlie's luck begins when he finds one of five golden tickets in his Wonka bar. It means he and four other kids have won a day with the Howard Hughes-ish recluse Willy Wonka and a tour of his legendary candy factory.

Each kid — except Charlie, another departure from the 1971 version — is given a lesson befitting his or her shortcomings; essentially, they're picked off like natives in a Tarzan movie. At the end, the last kid standing — guess who — wins a very special prize.

Burton and Depp, collaborating on their fifth movie, envision Willy Wonka and his factory as bittersweet at best. The movie has a decidedly darker, decidedly creepier tone than in the original movie. They mean it to be disturbing, and on occasion it is (note the PG rating).

Yet at the same time, they've been infected with a case of the warm-fuzzies. Wonka has been given a back story in which we learn his affinity for candy was a reaction to his deranged dad (Christopher Lee), a dentist who fitted him in an orthodontic nightmare contraption that looks like Hannibal Lecter's mask by way of David Cronenberg. He also forbade young Wonka to eat candy, even on Halloween. Pointing to a lollipop, Lee intones, "Cavities on a stick."

Further, Wonka Jr. now has a Peter Pan complex (why?) — one so severe he can't bring himself to say the word "parents" and consequently hates all families because his was so dismal. It's the sort of squishy thinking that made Steven Spielberg turn the guns in "E.T." into walky-talkies for its 20th anniversary theatrical release.

The production design is imaginative, but less so than last year's "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events." And the in-jokes invoking "Psycho," "The Fly" and "2001" (among others) seem too self-consciously geared to giggly adults.

About Depp... initially his wide-eyed, glazed-smile take on the character is intriguing, even daring. But the conception is paper-thin, and as the movie progresses, we realize his Willy Wonka has no intrinsic logic. Even at his most antic and unpredictable, Wilder's was a cohesive character, with a kind of Mad Hatter consistency.

Depp's version seems to have been conceived from a Bermuda Triangle of Pee-Wee Herman, Michael Jackson and Renfield, Count Dracula's cackling, demented, fly-eating minion. The actor is more in the moment than in character, doing whatever he pleases whenever he pleases. He can be petulant, naive, bemused, crafty, confused, whatever in any given scene. But his willful arbitrariness — he plays Willy Wonka willy-nilly, so to speak — leaves the picture groping for a center.

Neither the director nor the star can be accused of slacking off; "Charlie" is brimming with energy, cleverness and craft. But it remains more an abstract exercise than an all-engulfing experience.

Basically, it lacks a sense of wonder ... and warmth. You wanted Wilder's Wonka to give you a final hug. You want Depp's to put on surgical gloves before he makes a move toward you. Which is probably just what Burton and Depp intended.