Review of James and the Giant Peach (1996) by No O — 12 Sep 2010

Well, when I was a kid, I never watched this movie because I thought the name was way too weird. Later I discovered that this movie was made by Henry Selick, the stop-motion animation master who also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline, and also discovered that the movie has 93% in the Tomatometer so I decided to give it a chance and I was surprised but also kinda disappointed.

One of the main problems with this movie for me is the story, I mean nothing in this story makes sense, nothing has any explanation, things just happen without any reason. Maybe that's what the consensus meant with " light as air storytelling ", but I don't see how that is good.

Have an idea: the story begins with James, a little boy who lives in a hill, or mountain or something like that with his parents. And his dream is to go to New York with his family. However, one day his parents are eaten by a giant rhino that comes out of nowhere (WTF?). So he is obligated to live with his two evil stepmothers, I mean, aunts, who force him to work and make him live in poor conditions. But one day he encounters a man that appears out of nowhere and by some reason know his name (WTF?2) and gives some little green things that he says are crocodile tongues (WTF?3) and will help him to realize his dreams. But after the guy disappears, the crocodile tongues escape from James hopping around and burying themselves in the ground (WTF?4). But one of the toungues buries itself near a tree, which led to the appearence of a gigantic peach. His aunts turn this peach into a touristic spot and say to James never touch it. However, James, who is very hungry, eats a bit of the peach and opens a whole in iy. James enters the hole ( at this part, thefilm, that was live action till now, turns into stop-motion ) and discovers that the tongue also affected the creatures of the trees who are now giant and can talk. The insects help James to escape and go to New York. They tie the peach to a thousand seaguls and fly in an adventure that involves a gigantic mechanical shark that shoots spears (WTF?5) and a fight with underwater skelletons (WTF?6).

The story is full of strange moments, but after some time, I learned to not worry so much about it, because the strangeness of the story adds to the magic of the filme. I still have a lot of problems with it, but I don't care so much anymore.

Now, what I like about the film. James is a really likeable character and we get to sympathize a lot with him and with his insect friends, which also leads us to dislike his aunts even more. The film is indeed magical mainly because of the characters but also because the story is much filled with strange moments that we stop caring about it and just enjoy it. The songs in here are very good, not great, but very good, with the exception of the Randy Newman song in the credits, which I really love. The action scenes in r=here are really good, the fight with the mechanic shark and the skeletons are memorable and exciting.

But one of the greatest strengths of this movie is the animation. The majority of the film is animated, and I've said before that Henry Selick is a stop-motion master and this movie proves it. The animation is breathtaking and full of details. The characters animation is really impressive in characters like Mr Worm and Mr Centipede. Not to mention that this movie has some great lines like " Oh no, he has commited pesticide " or " Holy shipwreck! ".

However the movie has a lot of scenes that are in live action and sincerely I didn't like this scenes. Maybe it was the cinematography or the look of the aunts, something made me think that those live-action sequences were too gross.

I would normaly give a lower rating to this movie, but there is one thing that encourages me to give a higher grade and that is: it has a giant mechanical shark that shoots spears, even if it doesn't make any sense, that scene is just so coll it almost made the movie for me.

It was nominated to the Academy Award for Best Original Score - Musical or Comedy ( lost to Emma ).

Nice movie, strange, but enjoyable and magical. 7,7/10 - Great.