Review of James and the Giant Peach (1996) by Tina T — 31 Dec 2012
James and The Giant Peach is a nice, magical, clever film, but it simply lacks narrative content. Roald Dahl's book was not long after all. To alleviate this, Randy Newman is asked to provide a good many songs, which are okay, except for the first, "My Name Is James", which is awfully simple and sung badly by young Paul Thery, who cannot pronounce his R's.
Moreover, the songs do not actually add anything to the narrative, and rather than delight, I couldn't help but feel they were padding out the film somewhat. The main point of interest from a film lover's point of view of course is that this is Henry Selick's first film after "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas".
Tim Burton in fact acts as producer in this film, but he does not seem to provide creative input, although there is a nifty cameo from Jack Skellington as a ghost pirate. Visually the blend between live action and well executed stop-motion animation is lovely eye candy, and the film has a very nice art design.
This review of James and the Giant Peach (1996) was written by Tina T on 31 Dec 2012.
James and the Giant Peach has generally received positive reviews.
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