..Gary
Dretzka
..Noah
Forrest
..Leonard
Klady
..R.J.
Matson
..David
Poland
..Douglas
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
..Michael
Wilmington
Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
The exceptionally colorful 2005 Tim Burton adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, released as a Two-Disc Deluxe Edition by Warner Home Video (74314, $31), makes for a spectacular DVD. The surreal chocolate factory is so fantastic and so chromatic that it delivers a head-trip more powerful than a twenty-megaton sugar high. Not everybody likes the story, which is essentially about a weird adult who tortures children in candy processing machinery, but the adventure is so phantasmagoric that so long as the plot keeps the images moving, it doesn't really matter what happens. With a Louise Brooks bob and a stoned Carol Channing delivery, Johnny Depp pushes the eccentricity of his character, the factory owner, to its utmost limits, and he gets away with it because, again, the landscape around him is so bizarre and distracting that there is no time to dwell upon how mannered his character is. For a while it appears he might be a robot or something, but when that is disproved so much else has gone on that it no longer seems to matter. The constancy of the young titular hero of the story, seemingly the one 'normal' character and played with a superbly relaxed confidence by Freddie Highmore, is the only anchor the movie requires. With the letterboxed image, which has an aspect ratio of about 1.85:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback, and all of the amazing colors delivered with such bright and solid perfection, the film's assets seem to burst from the DVD, making the movie much easier to digest, even when the narrative doesn't seem all that appetizing.
The film's musical score feels like it is more designed to agitate the viewer than to underscore the fantasy, but that may be a sensible choice, the same reason that one combines peppers with sugars when cooking. The DVD's supplementary features supply a worthwhile breakdown of the film's musical strategy and its lampoons of various pop genres. One result of that strategy, however, is that while there are several elaborate song numbers, the film never ever feels like a musical, even though it looks likes one. The 5.1- channel Dolby Digital sound, with EX-encoding, is quite strong, with some playful separation effects and a good dimensionality. The 115-minute program has alternate French and Spanish tracks in 5.1 EX, optional English, French and Spanish subtitles, and a trailer.
The second platter has a misleading menu design, but if you poke around a bit, you can locate about 58 minutes of decent production featurettes (there's a great piece on how they made all of the chocolate) and a good 18-minute profile of Dahl. There is also a segment that teaches you how to do one of the film's dances, and three viable games.
November 10 , 2005DVD Roundup: This Week's DVD Releases
The Review VaultDouglas Pratt's DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter is published monthly.
For a free sample, call (516)594-9304 or go to his website at www.DVDLaser.com
