Wheelchair rugby is a form of demolition derby played by quadriplegics who crash their chairs into each other on a basketball court. In "Murderball,'' a gripping documentary about the sport and its participants, we learn that the competition produces emotional, as well as physical, volatility.

At the heart of the film is the fierce rivalry between the U.S. and Canadian national teams as they head toward a showdown at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens.

The U.S. squad is led by Mark Zupan, a tattooed, goateed former soccer player who became disabled when he was thrown from the back of a friend's pickup truck, landed in a ditch and avoided drowning by hanging from a branch for 13 1/2 hours. Zupan despises Canadian coach Joe Soares, a former U.S. wheelchair rugby star who switched allegiances after being cut by the American team.

Soares, who looks and acts like Robert Duvall's overbearing Marine father in "The Great Santini,'' is a perfect foil for Zupan and together they provide much of the dramatic tension. But "Murderball'' -- the original name for wheelchair rugby -- is about much more than a sports rivalry between athletes with limited use of their limbs. (Each player has some movement in his upper body.)

By weaving in the personal stories of other players who've been maimed by motor-vehicle accidents, fights and disease -- and showing without sentimentality or pity how they deal with their condition -- filmmakers Dana Adam Shapiro, Jeffrey Mandel and Henry-Alex Rubin have produced an inspiring film about the resilience of the human spirit.

"Murderball,'' from ThinkFilm, is playing in New York and Los Angeles.

The plan backfired. Because of a foul-up with the chocolate formula, the bars melted on the shelves and were taken off the market.

While not quite so embarrassing, Tim Burton's remake starring Johnny Depp also could use a recall. Released under the book's original title, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' is a faithful yet surprisingly flat retelling of Dahl's classic story about an eccentric candymaker who wants to give away his factory to a deserving child.

The biggest problem is Depp's bizarre interpretation of Willy Wonka as Michael Jackson with a sugar fix. Depp, 42, is one of the most creative and versatile actors of his generation, but his search for singularity has led him astray this time.

Depp portrays Wonka as a pale, androgynous, somewhat scary character with a pageboy hairdo, a black top hat and a long red velvet jacket that could have come right out of the closet at Neverland. When parents warn their kids about taking candy from strangers, this must be the image they have in mind.

Sweet and Sour

If Gene Wilder was a little too sweet as the original Willy Wonka, Depp is a tad too sour in the remake. Willy may be a tortured soul -- we learn that his sweet tooth was a reaction to his stern father, a dentist who barred him from eating candy and forced him to wear a teeth-straightening contraption that made him look like Hannibal Lecter -- but must we constantly be reminded with silliness like his inability to say the word "parents''?

The Freudian overtones -- and a different ending -- are among the few and relatively minor changes from the original movie. It remains the story of how Willy, after spending almost 15 years as a recluse inside his factory, emerges with a publicity stunt worthy of Donald Trump: He hides five "golden tickets'' in Wonka chocolate bars distributed around the world and invites the lucky children who find them to tour his factory and learn all his candy-making secrets.

Chocolate River, Fudge Mountain

Four of the winners turn out to be spoiled brats -- a gum- chewing champion from Atlanta, a fat boy from Dusseldorf, a rich daddy's girl from England and a video-game guru from Denver. The only decent kid in the bunch is Charlie, whose impoverished family lives in a wooden shack in the shadow of Willy's giant factory, located in an unidentified snowy locale with a Swiss/Bavarian flavor.

The inside of the factory is a magical place with a chocolate river, candy cane trees, fudge mountains, edible mint grass and a workforce of Oompa-Loompas, cheerful little people whose favorite snack is cocoa beans. The Oompa-Loompas, all played by height- challenged actor Deep Roy with the aid of computer wizardry, star in a series of tongue-in-cheek, Busby Berkeleyesque musical numbers, including the familiar routine where synchronized swimmers flop sideways, one by one, into the water.

No 'Candy Man'

Unlike the original, which featured songs by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, the new version makes extensive use of the witty lyrics Dahl wrote for his 1964 book. ("It clogs and clutters up the mind!/It makes a child so dull and blind,'' Dahl wrote of television, which has been updated to video games in 2005.) Conspicuously -- and thankfully -- missing from the remake is "The Candy Man,'' the sickeningly sweet song that became a hit for Sammy Davis Jr. and, no doubt, a moneymaker for dentists everywhere.

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,'' from Warner Bros. Pictures, opens today across the U.S.

To contact the writer of this story:
Rick Warner in New York at  rwarner1@bloomberg.net.