If anyone was going to make another movie version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” let’s be grateful it was Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. These two certifiably off-center talents have just the right attitude for the warped material.
“Charlie” is based on the classic 1964 Roald Dahl book, which was filmed in 1971 as “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” That film had a crazy design and a beauty of a Gene Wilder performance; you can’t really say it needed improving.
Still, the remake (which restores “Charlie” to the title) is sometimes downright wonderful. And it shares with the 1971 film a curious paradox: it’s charming, but it can also freak you out.
The story begins in the shadow of the great but mysterious Willy Wonka chocolate factory, which has been closed to the public for years. In a slanted, patchwork house, which gives new meaning to the word “ramshackle,” lives the Bucket family: four grandparents, a well-meaning Dad and Mom (Noah Taylor and Helena Bonham Carter), and little Charlie.
Charlie, played by Freddie Highmore, has his heart set on winning the big Willy Wonka contest: Five random children will find Golden Tickets inside their Wonka chocolate bars, and the winners get a tour inside the factory from the fabled Mr. Wonka himself.
Willy Wonka is played by Johnny Depp, and this is another hugely eccentric performance from the risk-taking actor. (He and Highmore co-starred in last year’s “Finding Neverland.”) With his ridiculous Prince Valiant haircut and greenish pallor, Depp goes off the deep end right away.
As inventive as he is, Depp hasn’t quite nailed this one. He portrays Willy Wonka as giggling and childlike, and somehow he seems less certain than in his out-there roles in “Pirates of the Caribbean” or in Burton’s “Ed Wood.”
The movie also adds some background to explain the choco-magnate’s weirdness: He was raised by an aloof dentist (Christopher Lee) who forbade him candy. This would qualify as unnecessary pop psychology if it weren’t so cleverly done.
It’s commonplace for reviewers to praise Tim Burton’s visual ingenuity, but in this one he really earns his rep. Interestingly, he’s actually at his best in the film’s opening half-hour, before we take the tour of the chocolate factory. Charlie’s home is a splendid Dickensian rattletrap, and the emotional heart of the movie. Segments with the other Golden Ticket winners are uproarious.
Those rotten little children and their escorts join Charlie and his grandpa (David Kelly) at the Wonka factory. This is a wonderland of chocolate rivers, Everlasting Gobstoppers, and Oompa-Loompas. You remember the Oompa-Loompas, Wonka’s diminutive workers – they are all played by one actor, Deep Roy, whose various performances (including choreographed songs and dances) have been digitally combined to create a truly delightful effect.
As with the first movie, some of the secrets of the chocolate factory are creepy. When Veruca Salt is attacked by trained squirrels (they open walnuts for candy bars) or Violet Beauregarde balloons up into a giant blueberry, it’s less funny than deeply weird. Littler kids may find it too strange for comfort.
“Charlie” runs into Burton’s usual organization problems. It goes on too long and drifts a bit toward the end. But there’s enough of the Bucket family’s pluck and Tim Burton’s imagination to make it memorable.
Johnny Depp stars in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
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