Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (2005/HD-DVD)

 

Picture: B     Sound: B     Extras: C+     Film: C+

 

 

I am no Tim Burton fan and when he does a film where he is not interested in the material, it either suffers (Batman Returns) or is a catastrophe (the Planet Of The Apes remake).  For his remake of Roald Dahl’s Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (2005), he shows some of the older flare that made him a success in the first place, no matter how odd the film gets.  Johnny Depp is Willie Wonka, played as a more reclusive, semi-morbid, more difficult, less friendly, more miserable man than the version Gene Wilder played back in 1971.

 

However, he is still trying to be amusing and do something different with the role, so this is not a problem.  The different direction is done in part by John August’s screenplay to try to get things out of the book the Wilder version dropped or glossed over to be child-friendly, which is not a bad thing, but leaves room for this remake to happen.  Not that it knows how to capitalize on the previous film’s missed opportunities, but it does have its moments, though my preview screening had people sentimentalizing with moments that were not necessarily meant to be that way.

 

As well, there were people who went into shock when one of the children was named Veruca Salt (played here with the right kind of petulance by Julia Winter, while the great James Fox plays her father) because a Rock band with the same name had a hit record not that long ago named after her.  Burton regular Helena Bonham Carter is Mrs. Bucket and the immortal Christopher Lee is Dr. Wonka.  The rest of the cast is also solid in all age groups and the film takes off, but the problem is that even after you have fun watching it for what it does offer, it does not stay with you.  The Wilder film Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971, also out on HD-DVD from Warner as directed by Mel Stuart) also has that issue, but still holds up as a children’s classic.  I do not know how well remembered this version will be in a few years, but it is the kind of critical/commercial comeback Burton desperately needed and let’s hope he gets back on track.

 

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image is not bad, but the purposely phony color is ultimately going to be a mater of taste.  I’ll say one thing in the playback of any version of the film.  If these are candy colors that are supposed to make the viewer hungry, it is time to go on a diet because it does not work, though maybe it could help the obesity problem in the U.S. if we figured out a way to apply it.  Though a little better than a regular DVD could deliver, I do not think this is a demo-quality disc for HD due to depth and color limits alone.  However, Cinematographer Phillippe Rousselot, A.F.C., A.S.C., is consistent in its surreal color schemes and the digital effects are phony but not as distracting.  The colors in any form, though, will never surpass the three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor prints made for the original Gene Wilder film.

 

The sound is not bad either, despite Danny Elfman’s usual giddy stomach-pumper beat music.  The film has some vocal songs that almost make it a musical, but they are just amusing interludes, making it more of a soundtrack-driven non-Musical.  The sound on both versions of the soundtrack is better than basic Dolby Digital could deliver, but there is the odd split of the final film soundtrack being only in Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 EX, while the isolated music-only track is in higher Dolby TrueHD 5.1.  The True HD sounds better, but without the rest of the film’s sound mix, only is so good to have.  With all the extras, we guess the 30GB disc could not fit the actual film soundtrack in Dolby TrueHD, but was the original recording not good enough overall to be presented this way?  Music is often recorded better (even today) than dialogue and sound effects in more cases than you’d think in films these days.  Either way, it is top notch enough to enjoy if you are a fan, but the lack of a regular TrueHD track for the film is an issue.

 

Extras are many and include seven making of/behind the scenes featurettes, an eighth featurette on Roald Dahl, the original trailer (that has been on the HD-DVD Toshiba demo disc), feature length commentary by Burton, the isolate Dolby TrueHD track already noted, “European Club Reel” and two dance sequences in their previsualized mode.  Overall, this is Burton’s best film in a long time by default and did some interesting things with the story the Gene Wilder film did not, but cannot top it.  However, it is Dahl who is the ultimate author of this work and I have a feeling this will not be the last film of the material we will see.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo