The Dahl story

Acclaimed director Tim Burton brings his vividly imaginative style to the beloved Roald Dahl classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The plot is about eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka, played by Johnny Depp, and Charlie Bucket, played by Freddie Highmore, a good-hearted boy from a poor family who lives in the shadow of Wonka's extraordinary factory.

Most nights in the Bucket home, dinner is a watered-down bowl of cabbage soup, which young Charlie gladly shares with his family.

Theirs is a tiny, tumbledown, draughty old house but it is filled with love.

One day Willy Wonka makes a momentous announcement. He will open his famous factory and reveal "all of its secrets and magic" to five lucky children who find golden tickets hidden inside five randomly selected Wonka chocolate bars.

Indeed, one by one, news breaks around the world about the children finding golden tickets and Charlie's hope grows dimmer.

First there is gluttonous Augustus Gloop, who thinks of nothing but stuffing sweets into his mouth all day, followed by spoiled Veruca Salt, who throws fits if her father doesn't buy her everything she wants.

Next comes Violet Beauregarde, a champion gum chewer who cares only for the trophies in her display case, and finally surly Mike Teavee, who's always showing off how much smarter he is than everyone else.

But then, Charlie finds some money on the snowy street and takes it to the nearest store for a Wonka Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight, thinking only of how hungry he is and how good it will taste.

There, under the wrapper, is a flash of gold. It's the last ticket.

Once inside, Charlie is dazzled by one amazing sight after another. Wondrous gleaming contraptions of Wonka's own invention churn, pop and whistle, producing ever new, and different, edible delights.

Elsewhere, a hundred trained squirrels on a hundred tiny stools shell nuts for chocolate bars faster than any machine and Wonka himself pilots an impossible glass elevator that rockets sideways, slantways and every which way you can think of, through the vast and fantastic factory.

They ride a translucent, spun-sugar, dragon-headed boat down a chocolate river past crops of twisted candy cane trees and edible mint-sugar grass. Marshmallow cherry creams grow on shrubs, ripe and sweet.

Almost as intriguing as his fanciful inventions is Willy Wonka himself, a gracious but most unconventional host.

Meanwhile, the other children prove to be a rotten bunch, so consumed with themselves that they scarcely appreciate the wonder of Wonka's creations.

When only little Charlie Bucket is left, Willy Wonka reveals the final secret, the absolute grandest prize of all: the keys to the factory itself.

What he never expects is that his act of immeasurable generosity might bring him an even more valuable gift in return.