James and the Giant Peach

There is sooo much I like with this movie. It has imagination, a sense of wonder and characters you either love or hate. And the blend of live action and stop-motion animation is a delight. The songs incorporated in this story is not very memorable but sweet and fit their purpose. And you simply have to love to hate Margoyles and Lumley in their parts as the aunts from hell. They treat poor James so horribly that I thought that "Cinderella had it easy"! Compared to "nightmare before Christmas" I actually liked this movie better. It has more of a heart even if the story itself may be just a bit less interesting and inventive. There are so many good scenes but among the highlights is the arctic adventure and the New York sequence. But, mind you, the opening is very deceptive and might scare younger parts of the audience. Otherwise, a must-see!!!

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!

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 visual style is a bit "freaky" and the characters are a bit offbeat but that gives it some charm. I loved the banter between all the different insects who have a rivalry but are all good people. Their adventure is very engaging. The only downside is that sometimes the film is a bit over the top which makes it hard to empathise with James because his struggles can seem a bit comedic.

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.