James und der Riesenpfirsich

I was an enormous fan of Roald Dahl's books when I was kid. I think of him as the Hands Christian Anderson of the 20th century. I didn't read all of Dahl's books but I read most of them. I've also seen most of the movies based on his books. Out of all the Roald Dahl books I read as child I would say that 'Charlie And The Chocolate Factory' is my favorite but 'James And The Giant Peach' is my second favorite.

The reason why I would say these two books are my favorites is because they're both about children who live miserable lives until a magical experience changes their lives forever and both end up becoming the luckiest kids in the world. For Charlie, his life changes with a tour of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, but for James it's with a magical giant peach and group very friendly creatures.

I first remember hearing about this movie back in late 1996 when it was released in America during the Christmas holidays and I was very excited about it, but unfortunately I had to wait until the Easter Holidays before this movie arrived in Australia. I certainly loved it. James's two horrible aunt's who are nothing except cruel and nasty. Are as horrible in the movie as they are in the book.

I really loved the creatures from the peach which I remember (from the book) James describing them as "The friendliest creatures in the world". These creatures include Grasshopper, Earthworm, Centipede, Ladybug, Spider and Glowworm. My two favorite character's are Spider because her French accent made her a very smooth character and Centipede because of his sense of humor.

I also liked the songs. My favorite was "We're Family" which the creatures use to express how much they love James. I certainly believe these creatures are the best family any child could have. So for anyone who loved Roald Dahl's books as a child, you must...must see this film!

James and the Giant Peach is a stop motion/live action adaptation of the late Roald Dahl's book in the early 60s when being transitioned into film (like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, The Witches, Matilda, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox) about a young boy named James, who climbs into the peach and meets anthropomorphic stop-motion insects and stumbles upon an adventure of a lifetime. Many critics and fans of Roald Dahl alike were amazed about how faithful this movie was to the book, but there are two problems that I do have with this adaptation.

1) The beginning was quite dark and might frighten younger kids along with other scenes.

2) The rhino in the sky and the scene where James battles it wasn't explained enough. That's it for the criticism.

The positive aspects of this movie were excellent. The live action sets and the stop-motion animation have an astounding charm to the book. The character designs are pretty unique and the Jack Skellington cameo as the captain of the skeletons was amazing. The acting is very superb. The stop-motion insects were good, the two mean aunts named Spike and Sponge were tolerable, and the main character James is very likable. Even the action is very good. Music/songs written by Randy Newman (The Toy Story trilogy, The Princess and the Frog) were surprising good. Although not a masterpiece, James and the Giant Peach is an enjoyable family entertainment that stays faithful to the story from a great author.

8/10

As a child James and the Giant Peach was one of my favorite books, so it was interesting to see how it would be formatted into a film. They actually did a pretty good job, although the book is much better. The animation was nicely done, and I liked the way the characters changed from life form to animated form- it gave the film a real surreal type of film. The songs were quite poor, and were obviously aimed at the kids to 'liven' things up a bit, after all some may say the story ventures on the dark side of things. It's nice to see a film aimed at children that can also appeal to adults as well, although it does help that many of us are very familiar with Roald Dahl's stories. In summary quite a good effort.

I really enjoyed it, and so did my 3- and 5-year-old (and yes, we read the book). The animation and live-action scenes showed a lot of love. Though elements of the story seemed a bit hurried or neglected, they weren't anything a fairy-tale fantasy couldn't absorb in stride. The music works well enough for this non-fan of musicals, and I prefer serviceable and inoffensive tunes to the treacly jingles and melodramatic scores of the usual Disney classics.

My only real complaint would be with the ending, as it really is unclear how the aunts drove across the ocean (did they obtain their own crocodile tongues?), and the slice of NY upon landing has a grim, Munchkin-town quality. Still, everything up to that point has left you with lots of goodwill towards the movie's makers.

The 1996 Disney filmization of Roald Dahl's first book for children, 1961's "James and the Giant Peach," is a delightful confection that, like its original, should prove as much fun for the adults as the kiddies. The film hews fairly closely to its source material, with some important differences, and really is quite the exemplar of modern-day animation arts. In it, we are introduced to James Henry Trotter, an orphaned boy whose miserable existence with his two witchlike aunts takes a decided turn for the better when a mysterious old man gives him a bagful of magical green crystals. These crystals cause the previously barren peach tree in his front yard to grow the titular giant fruit, and James soon meets, inside the stone of the fruit, six new friends, giants all: a grasshopper, a spider, an earthworm, a glowworm, a ladybug and a centipede (the book's silkworm character, for some reason, has been omitted). The seven make a hazardous trans-Atlantic journey to NYC aboard the peach, a journey that tests the mettle of each of the team indeed. The film differs from Dahl's book in that the journey to NYC is a goal, rather than a happy accident. The film also tones down the book's violence (James' aunts are not killed in the film), turns the shark into some kind of killer robot, and, most unwisely, drops the entire sequence with the Cloud Men in favor of a haunted pirate ship not at all present in Dahl's text. The nature of the rhino that ate James' parents is also, strangely, much altered. The filmmakers have added some musical numbers to the mix, and although Randy Newman's charms are usually lost on me, I found his five contributions here to be quite entertaining. The picture blends live action, stop-motion animation and what looks to be (in James' dream) animated collages seamlessly and effectively, and the whole production really is something of a technical marvel. Despite the changes, this is one very winning entertainment indeed.