Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) lives a meagre life with his parents and four grandparents, eating cabbage soup for every meal, yet dreaming of the chocolate produced by the huge factory that overshadows the entire town. The owner is one Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp), a mysterious figure who, 15 years ago, dismissed all his employees for fear due to his secrets being stolen by competitors. The factory continues to pump out confectionary, however, and so, when it is announced that golden tickets granting entry to the factory have been hidden in five Wonka bars, the entire world goes chocolate-crazy. But Charlie, who only gets one bar per year, doesn't stand a chance of being one of the lucky winners...

16 years after his death, Roald Dahl continues to appear at the top of a large number of children's lists of favourite authors, and, when I was younger, I would almost certainly have been part of that group. Part of what makes Dahl's writing appeal to so many people is his ability to portray the world in the manner in which children see it, and yet at the same time not talk down to his audience. Instead, never simplifying or attempting to shield children from the often harsh realities of life, he pitches the material at his audience's level, making if feel natural rather than like a conscious stylistic touch. The various film adaptations of his books have attempted to do the same, with varying degrees of success, from the annoyingly twee and saccharine 1971 adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) to Nicolas Roeg's ambitious but ultimately clumsy horror movie interpretation of The Witches.

It is the existence of the former that makes this 2005 interpretation of the film so interesting, because no other Dahl film has been adapted to the screen twice (although certainly there have been a variety of audio and theatre productions based on it). Dahl famously hated Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, despite penning the initial draft of the screenplay himself: he left the production in a rage, and it was rewritten by David Seltzer (of The Omen fame). It's easy to see why: it may have become a much-loved piece of childhood nostalgia for many viewers who grew up in the 70s, but as a reproduction of the tone and outlook of Dahl's book, it is a travesty. One of the main intentions behind the new version, therefore, was a more faithful adaptation of Dahl's material. And who better to helm it than Tim Burton, who, after all, like Dahl, has been praised for his childlike view of the world - a world at once both charming and full of menace?

It's rather surprising, therefore, that, not only is the new film not significantly better than its predecessor, it is in many respects worse. The narrative is superficially closer to that of the novel in a number of respects - for instance, Mrs. Bucket is no longer a single parent, and many of the lines of dialogue in the script are taken directly from the book - but damaging and unneccessary modifications have been made, especially with regard to the portrayal of Willy Wonka. It's no longer enough for him to be an eccentric recluse who rounds up a group of obnoxious children and picks them off one by one. Instead, Burton and screenwriter John August insist on tacking on a grating and thoroughly unneccessary back-story involving Wonka's troubled relationship with his father, the austere Dr. Wilbur Wonka (Christopher Lee). Lee is, as always, highly watchable, but the new material, without exception, stinks, and simply adds exposition where none was needed.

These complaints pale into insignificance, however, when faced with Johnny Depp's horrible performance as Wonka, a skin-crawling interpretation of the character that almost derails the whole movie. Whatever complaints might be levelled against Gene Wilder in the earlier version, he at least seemed believable and multifaceted. Depp's Wonka is a grotesque caricature, a simpering attention-seeker who constantly giggles and leers and talks like a valley girl. These changes serve to make the character seem despicable - a petulant child screaming for attention, very much like the gaggle of snot-nosed brats who enter his factory. Worse still, he dominates the entire movie as soon as he appears, to the extent that Charlie, supposedly the protagonist of the story, simply vanishes into the background as soon as he enters the factory. In effect, he survives the experience only by being the most bland of the five children - a characteristic to some extent true of both the book and the earlier adaptation, but one taken to ridiculous extremes here. Freddie Highmore is a fairly talented young actor, but one who, for the bulk of the film, is given next to nothing to do except hang on Wonka's every word. We never really see the events unfold through his eyes as we do in the book and, to some extent, the earlier film, which robs the narrative of its focal point.

The above paragraphs probably give the impression that I absolutely hated the film, but this is not strictly speaking true. There are a lot of good elements in it, most of which take place outside the factory. The design of Charlie's town, by Alex McDowell, is marvellous, and comes surprisingly close to capturing it as I imagined it when I read the book as a child. The interior of the factory is quite an impressive piece of set design, too, even if Burton does tend to go overboard with the eye-searing candy-cane colours of the chocolate river and its surroundings. Unfortunately, the tone is not particularly well maintained, with the video game-obsessed Mike Teavee and the soccer mom portrayal of Violet Beauregarde's mother clashing horribly with the rest of the film, which, like the book, seems to take place somewhere that is neither America nor England at some time in the past that cannot be precisely pinpointed. Even Danny Elfman's score, which is by and large very good, is let down by musical numbers which, despite using the lyrics of Dahl's original rhymes as a basis, are absolutely hideous.

For all my criticism of Depp's performance, it must be pointed out that the majority of the cast, both young and old, deserve commendation for playing their various roles with aplomb. Mike Teavee and Violet Beauregarde are certainly a million miles away from anything Dahl ever wrote (you can make an argument for "updating" them to reflect the changing times, but given that so much of the film seems to be set at some point in the past, this doesn't really hold any water), but Augustus Gloop and Veruca Salt feel as if they've literally stepped off the page. Noah Taylor and Helena Bonham Carter (who, it seems, must now be shoehorned into every single Burton film now that the pair are engaged) are largely underused as Charlie's parents, but the four actors playing the grandparents are particularly good, especially David Kelly as the sprightly Grandpa Joe.

I've yet to see a Roald Dahl adaptation that is completely satisfying. Generally speaking, the mood of his books seems to be very hard to convey in cinematic form, and Tim Burton certainly gives it a decent shot but bungles it in a number of key areas. As these adaptations go, it's certainly nothing like as bad as, say, Matilda, but it's ultimately a poor reflection of the source material and not enough of an improvement on the earlier interpretation to justify its existence.


HD DVD Presentation

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (close enough to its original ratio of 1.85:1, which is in fact quoted on the packaging, not to split hairs), this VC1-encoded 1080P transfer is actually slightly disappointing, particularly given the rave reviews it has garnered elsewhere. Indeed, I'd actually argue that this is the weakest-looking HD DVD release I've seen so far. Given how splendid most of them have looked, this doesn't mean that it's a bad transfer by any means - indeed, it looks rather good - but it's the first time I've ever seen noticeable compression artefacts on an HD DVD. A couple of scenes are affected: for instance, an explosion at around 01:22:11 results in a lot of blocking in the bottom right hand corner of the frame, while there are some less noticeable artefacts at around 01:07:32, and some mild "swimming" in the backgrounds of a handful of scenes.

The picture also looks surprisingly soft. Some of this is intentional - the film was digitally colour timed, and Tim Burton, it would seem, took the opportunity to add a further touch of artificiality to the movie by cranking up the automated spot remover beyond what most people would consider a reasonable level. A lot of the time, the actors' faces, even in close-up, look like those of porcelain dolls, and in some scenes, such as the early flashback to when Grandpa Joe worked at the factory, they look waxy and smeared. These are not the fault of the HD DVD. What is, however, is the overall diffuse look of the film. Throughout, it looks almost outright blurry, but for one occasion: the first Oompa-Loompa musical number after Augustus Gloop has been sucked into the pipes of the chocolate river. Suddenly, the softening disappears and, for a few brief moments, it becomes a 10/10 transfer. The grain that was sorely missing comes back, the individual blades of grass stop being merely a swathe of poorly-defined green, and it all seems much more three-dimensional. It doesn't last, though, and, almost as soon as the song has finished, it goes back to its murky, diffuse look, which remains for the rest of the film.

This is not, overall, a bad transfer, and it certainly blows away the standard definition release, but I did expect something more. I would put this around the same level as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: with some moments of brilliance, but inconsistent and ultimately lacking in "wow" factor.

In terms of audio, we are offered Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 and TrueHD 5.1 tracks. For some bizarre reason, the latter is a music-only affair, which, while a nice inclusion, seems a rather strange feature on which to spend the space required for a TrueHD track. I'm sure most people would have preferred the final mix to be provided in TrueHD, rather than a feature that only a small number of people are likely to even sample. Even so, the DD-Plus track is very good. The audio design is as detailed as the production design, and cranking up the volume results in an extremely enveloping experience. The sounds of the various machines in Wonka's factory resonate from the various channels, while the dialogue is crisp, with even Johnny Depp's blubbering retorts coming across intelligibly.

English, French and Spanish subtitles are provided for the film but not the extras.


Extras

Warner have ported over all of the extras from the 2-disc standard definition release of the film, and, if you would like more details on these, I direct you to Eamonn McCusker's review, which provides a comprehensive account of what you can expect to find in that package. With this review, I want to concentrate on the HD DVD-exclusive content, some of which is a little unexpected.

In addition to the aforementioned isolated score, the big surprise is the inclusion of an audio commentary with Tim Burton, which didn't appear on any of the standard definition releases. This is not touted on the packaging as an exclusive of any kind, but exclusive it is, although how much you welcome its inclusion will depend on how well you can tolerate Burton's dry musings, and their somewhat sporadic nature. He provides a lot of information about his thought process and the various creative decisions he had to make in adapting the book to the screen, but it tends to get a little hard-going at times, as his delivery gives the impression, rightly or wrongly, that he's slightly bored by the whole affair (he's considerably more animated than on the commentary for Sleepy Hollow, though). It's also fairly clear that elements of the track have been cut together from other interviews, as there is some repetition of material already included in the various featurettes on the disc.

The second major exclusive feature, which certainly is publicised on the packaging, is the In-Movie Experience feature. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed by it. Featuring a combination of audio bytes, interview clips, previsualisation demonstrations and pop-up trivia, it seems to be aimed squarely at children, and as a result is pretty light. The material is also very sporadic, frequently resulting in gaps of several minutes between one clip and the next. The presentation is also rather tacky, with a low resolution, cheap-looking origami motif, while the window in which the various interviews appear is overly large, obscuring too much of the screen at any given time. The bottom line is that I very much like the In-Movie Experience when used effectively - The Bourne Supremacy and Constantine were both of a high standard, and I see plenty of room for further improvement in the future - but this very much represents the other end of the spectrum.


Overall

Warner's HD DVD release of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is pretty good, but disappoints with regard to its transfer and the lacklustre quality of the In-Movie Experience. As such, I'd hestitate to call this a must-buy for those who already own the standard definition 2-disc edition, although it obviously constitutes a considerable improvement in terms of image quality.

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