Johnny Depp plays the eccentric sweetie-maker Willy Wonka in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, two young boys hold a rather fuller piggy-bank than usual in Millions and Tom Hanks catches the Polar Express...
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
****
Given Johnny Depp's penchant for eccentric characters, Willy Wonka, the sweetie-maker in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, is a part he was born to play. His nervy performance is a delight, as he escorts poor-but-honest Charlie (Freddie Highmore, fantastic as usual) and four pre-teen horrors round the factory, gleefully dispensing with the undersized oiks as he goes. Director Tim Burton has cheekily added a pseudo-Freudian backstory to Roald Dahl's classic but it works rather well - who wouldn't have issues with Christopher Lee for a dad? And if the family-values message is a tad sugary, then the trained squirrels, chocolate river and dancing Oompa Loompas more than make up for it.
Extras: Three good docs and a trio of interactive features, including an Oompa Loompa dance.
Millions
***
A children's fable about the corrupting power of money and the difficulty in being virtuous isn't what you'd expect from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, but Millions is surprisingly charming, and the visuals are as energetic as Boyle's drug-soaked groundbreaker. In fact, some - such as skyscrapers made of money - stop just short of hallucinogenic. Damian (Alex Etel) holds a rather fuller piggy-bank than most seven-year-olds: a bag stuffed with soon-to-be-obsolete sterling. He determines to give his windfall away to the needy and deserving but finds it harder to carry out than he expected. The film fizzles at the end, but its freckle-faced hero and a scattering of down-to-earth saints make this surprisingly watchable until then.
Extras: Director's commentary, deleted scenes, various featurettes.
Andrew & Jeremy Get Married
***
Despite its clunky title, Andrew & Jeremy Get Married is a sweet and salutary documentary of two gay men tying the knot. Jeremy is 68, a retired English professor of fixed and fussy habits, while Andrew is 20 years younger with no interest in his partner's intellectual hobbies. What they do have in common is a history of denial and rejection of their homosexuality, which caused Jeremy to get married to a woman and Andrew to go gay-bashing with the mates he was terrified might realise his secret. Those horrors make an astringent contrast with the love that shines through everything this odd couple do and say, and they are as honest with Don Boyd and his camera as they are glad to be with each other.
Extras: Director's commentary, deleted scenes.
The Polar Express
**
If you're going to buy the kids The Polar Express - and trust me, despite the Robert Zemeckis direction and sophisticated animation, it isn't one for adults - then it's worth splashing out the extra for this two-disc set, which has a wealth of featurettes and mini-docs. Many of them, unsurprisingly, talk about the pioneering motion capture technique that transferred actual actors' motions into animation. It's very clever, allowing Zemeckis to cheerily chuck characters, even small ones, into danger. But the fact that Tom Hanks plays practically everyone, from the little boy who struggles to believe in Santa to the hobo he meets aboard the titular magic train, makes the ominously oversized Santa (played by guess who?) seem like a motion capture of Hanks's ego. And the queasily sentimental love-song to Christmas will have the sentient upchucking their mince pies.
Extras: A disc's worth, including docs, Easter eggs and a game.
