After missing out on an Oscar for The Pirates Of The Caribbean, Johnny Depp got a second shot at the Best Actor gong with Marc Forster's "tender and visually exciting" Finding Neverland. He stars as Scottish scribe JM Barrie whose relationship with a widow (Kate Winslet) and her sons inspires the writing of Peter Pan. However, out of seven nominations, only composer Jan AP Kaczmarek took home an award for Best Original Score.

The Boy Who Never Grew Up

He may be a serious actor but Johnny Depp also has an impish sense of humour as evidenced in The Magic Of Finding Neverland. Talking about one of the film's heavier scenes, he reveals how he planted a whoopee cushion to loosen up the stifling ambience. It's the only amusing anecdote amid lots of shameless gushing between co-stars and is complemented by an outtakes reel that includes footage from that particular day of filming.

Apparently Depp was full of wacky ideas, which director Marc Forster reveals in an engaging audio commentary. A range of peculiar props from a fishing rod baited with a tennis ball (for playing with the dog) and a walking cane rigged with a mirror (for peeking behind the stage curtain) were all products of Depp's wild imagination. Annoyingly though, Forster completely disregards the question of paedophilia which hangs over the film. "Barrie wasn't a paedophile," he asserts, "He was an asexual man." Writer David Magee and producer Richard N Gladstein, who join Forster in the audio commentary, are just as terse and unwilling to discuss the issue, yet provide absolutely no justification for their point of view.

Off With The Fairies

No doubt the film is impressive in visual terms with its huge array of olde worlde special effects blended with new world CGI. Sadly, at just three minutes long, Creating Neverland offers very few insights into this aspect of production. Essentially it's a montage of clips from the film and green screen footage cobbled together with soundbites from technical bods. On The Red Carpet is similarly brief, however in this case it's a mercy, as once again the actors line up to pat each other on the back at various premiere parties from London to LA.

Three deleted scenes ladle on the exposition; As Winslet's widow earnestly tells Depp's Barrie how much he means to their family, the star looks understandably uncomfortable. In an optional commentary, Forster confesses that Depp actually told him, "You've got to cut this." A nervous Magee makes light of it, laughing as he says, "I can't think why I wrote this scene!" In fact, during the feature commentary, Forster explains that he often battled against too much explanatory dialogue.

Ironically though, it's the lack of back-story on the making of the film, which is the major weak spot for this DVD. A good commentary keeps it anchored, otherwise this extras package is a little too airy-fairy.

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