Review of James and the Giant Peach (1996) by Rachel H — 30 Oct 2010

James and the Giant Peach is the most clever, beautiful claymation kids movies I have ever seen and one of my favourite kids movies of all time. It is about James Henry Trotter, a little boy who lived a once happy life with his mother and father until an angry rhino came out of the sky and swallowed them (i'm not sure if this is a metaphor for something, if it is real, or if it is a lie James' aunts told him, but let's press onward). Now, he is living an unhappy life with his two aunts Spiker (the always fantastic Joanna Lumley) and Sponge (Miriam Margolyes). He is beaten, told he is unwanted, fed scraps, and is forced to do menial chores and sleep in a cold room. This miserable life continues on until a strange man gives him a bag of crocodile tongues and says that they will do magical things and he will never be miserable again. James accidentally spills some and one lands on a peach in the peach tree by their house. This peach soon grows to be ginormous in size and the whole movie is pretty much James' journey to New York City with a centipede (Richard Dreyfuss) spider (Susan Sarandon) ladybug (Jane Leeves) worm (David Thewlis) grasshopper (Simon Callow) and glowworm (Miriam Margolyes).

First of all, all the voice work and acting is great. The antagonists are just fantastic with the great Joanna Lumley stealing the show. Miriam Margolyes doesn't do a bad job, but Joanna is better. The voices of all the bugs are fantastic, and the cameo by Jack Skellington as a shipwrecked ship captain is by far one of the best scenes in the movie.

James was okay, but I can see why he had little to no career after this movie. Like Freddie Highmore in Charlie and the Chocolate factory, his performance was just a little too saintly for my taste and he didn't depict a regular kid. I know he was under sad circumstances, but even kids under sad circumstances act like kids. They get happy, they get sad, they even get angry. But James doesn't portray any of that, he just portrays essentially the saint child, always gives away, never thinks of himself. I've bashed James so much I bet you think I think there's nothing good about the character. There is; He's a good kid and you don't want to see anything bad happen to him, and when he gets his happy ending, you're happy too. All I'm saying is that his saintliness gets a little bit annoying at times.

Lastly, the visuals are great. Henry Selick has done it again. He captured visual greatness in a bottle with Nightmare Before Christmas and he has captured proverbial claymation lightning in a bottle with this movie. These visuals are on par with TNBC and Henry Selick's most recent work, Coraline's visuals are on par with this. Nothing much more to say but that the visuals are just tops.

If you haven't seen this movie, see it now. I would put it on the top movies you need to see before you die. I saw this on DVD when I was eight and I loved it then and still love it today. Even people that don't like movies made for kids will find something they like about this movie. A must see for kids and adults.