Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

(Herald rating: * * *)

Johnny Depp has been the making of many a movie. From Edward Scissorhands - his first film with Tim Burton - to Pirates of the Caribbean, his risky offbeat performances have often turned lesser films into something special.

Sure, we already have a perfectly good screen version of Roald Dahl's children's novel in the beloved 1971 version starring Gene Wilder as reclusive candy magnate Willy Wonka.

But the notion of Depp in wacky overdrive as Wonka, combined with Burton's visual imagination and a script that stays more faithful to Dahl's tale of spoiled brats, greed, gluttony and golden tickets would seem to be on to a sure thing.

Except, it hasn't worked out that way.

It sure looks the part. But it really is a grand confection, one lacking the heart and suspense of its screen predecessor.

While it claims to restore Dahl's original satirical edge, that gets lost in the indulgences of the director (who tosses in a Stanley Kubrick homage and references to Psycho and The Fly to show he's not slumming it by making a kids' movie) and the performance of its main star.

While Depp has been the making of many a film, he's rather the undoing of this one. There's something trying and increasingly unfunny in his performance here.

He's all spooky gnashers, strange pallor, lilting voice and eccentric turns of phrase. At least Michael Jackson has made the same approach work for him. But for Depp, it comes off as an overbearing indulgence. Worse, it makes you appreciate Jim Carrey as the Grinch or Count Olaf even more.

And while there's much that dazzles in Burton's garish vision of the factory and its staff - from nut-cracking squirrels to the Oompa Loompas, whose singing and dancing talents this time extend to water ballet and rock opera - it still feels hollow and mechanical.

True, like many of my generation, my affection for the first film comes from having seen it at an age impressionable enough to induce nightmares.

And, apart from Violet ballooning into a blueberry and the young Herr Gloop disappearing up that choccy pipe, there are images in this one that are even more the stuff of bad dreams.

They come in a series of flashbacks which try (was this necessary?) psychological insight into the misanthropic Wonka. They show Willy turned out the way he did because his father was an obsessive dentist who looked like Christopher Lee. (Waaah! Mum!)

As using the original book title suggests, the film belongs to Charlie.

As poor Charlie Bucket, Freddie Highmore is the heart of the film in a performance that is never cute or cloying.

Highmore's Charlie - along with his grandfather, played by terrific Irish character actor David Kelly - are major saving graces here.

They breathe life and soul into the film as the visual sugar-rush and Depp's perpetual zaniness threaten to overwhelm everything else.

CAST: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly
DIRECTOR: Tim Burton
RATING: PG
RUNNING TIME: 115 mins
SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas from Thursday