Review of James and the Giant Peach (1996) by Arjun A — 19 Apr 2015

What a creative and imaginative film, though it's really weird, so prepare yourself if you watch this. I was surprised by how much I actually liked this movie. I mean, I expected it to be good, maybe around a 6/10, but after watching it I'd probably give it a 8/10.

The stop motion animation looks really awesome, especially for the time. What I think really makes it stand out though is just how wacky and creative it gets. It serves as an outlet for anything absurd and over the top, while being grounded by a simple story and simple, relatable characters.

It does have issues though. There's this song at the beginning of the movie sung by the main kid actor, and I'm not going to lie, it sucked really bad. The kid just couldn't sing and I certainly could have gone without it.

Also I don't like the ending. The way it ended left me believing that magic actually did exist in the movie's universe and I thought it would have been a better film if the kid had made it up all in his head to cope with the loss of his parents.

Maybe that's a little dark, but it would have been really interesting for a kid's movie to have that underlying tone. Still, it's a pretty great film and it's perfect for the family (except my family, as they all hated it, yet they'll watch The Nut Job and laugh all the way through.

Why?).