A young boy named James Henry Trotter (Paul Terry) is sent to live with his cruel and vindictive Aunts Sponge (Miriam Margolyes) and Spiker (Joanna Lumley) after James' parents are killed by a rhino. After saving a spider from being killed by his aunts, James is met by a magic man (Pete Postlethwaite) who gives James a bag of magical crocodile tongues that will make his dreams come true only to inadvertently trip and lose them. One of the tongues works its magic on a dead tree on Sponge and Spiker's property that ends up growing a peach to gargantuan size. Sponge and Spiker rake in massive admission fees from their exhibition of the peach, while James is still as miserable as ever. While cleaning up the trash around the peach James eats a piece of it which unbeknownst to him has a crocodile tongue in it and an opening in the peach reveals itself and inside are giant anthropomorphized bugs elegant and dignified Mr. Grasshopper (Simon Callow), abrasive, boastful, but ultimately good-hearted Brooklyn accented Mr. Centipede (Richard Dreyfus), sweet motherly Mrs. Ladybug (Jane Leeves), demure but strong Miss Spider (Susan Sarandon), neurotic and constantly panicked Mr. Earthworm (David Thewlis), and sweet, elderly, and slightly confused Mrs. Glowworm. Following a series of events that results in the peach rolling into the sea with James and the bugs inside it, the group head for New York City (as James' late father had promised him) meeting several surreal encounters along the way.
James and the Giant Peach is an adaptation the 1961 book of the same name by author Roald Dahl. Disney animator Joe Ranft had attempted to convince Disney staff to produce a film based on the book as far back as the early 80s as Ranft had been enamored with the book since reading it as a child. Disney refused due to the expensive animation process as well as the weird subject matter which was very "dreamy" and episodic. Disney eventually acquired the rights in 1992 from Dahl's widow Felicy and began developing the film. Dennis Potter of The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven wrote one of the early drafts but was ultimately rejected due to being too "dark and bizarre" with one sticking point being the shark attack episode having the sharks be Nazis. The final draft is attributed to Karey Kirkpatrick, Jonathan Roberts, and Steve Bloom. Henry Selick was brought on to direct, but there was debate on how to approach the material with Disney skeptical of the stop-motion process and whether the film should be entirely stop-motion. Eventually Selick opted for distinct live-action and stop-motion sequences abandoning the idea that James would be a live-action actor interacting with stop-motion elements (thought some parts do feature such an approach). Upon release, critical reception was positive with many complimenting the creativity of the visuals, characters, and animation, while the story and live-action elements were subject to some criticism. The movie was also an underperformer at the box office opening at number two behind Primal Fear and making $28 million against its $38 million budget, a step down from Nightmare Before Christmas' $50 million. The movie did eventually do better on home video and attained a cult audience that appreciated the weirdness on display, and while there's a lot to admire there's also issues in the storytelling and execution that keep you from being fully engaged.
To start off on a positive note, James and the Giant Peach has a unique look. In contrast to the twisted and dark iconography from Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach has its own visual identity with softer designs, brighter colors, and grander scope and it provides a unique experience separate from Selick's visions of Christmas and Halloween Town from Nightmare. The movie features a wide array of noted character actors providing the voices of the giant bugs and thanks to Selick's animation on the distinctive models as well as the actor's vocal delivery we get a good sense of who these characters are as well as their personalities. Paul Terry's does perfectly fine as James even if he's maybe a little uncertain in his performance, but since he's established as an audience proxy it works for the direction they take. The live-action sequences in the film were and still are slightly divisive and while I can understand why, for the style they go for I think it works. The sets are designed to look deliberately artificial looking but also timeless and there's an attempt to emulate the contrast of something like 1939's The Wizard of Oz, and while it doesn't quite work to that level, it's probably in the same messy but appealing section of something like 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
The writing in the film is probably the biggest issue as it's a very loosely structured narrative with a lot of surreal elements that don't have much internal logic even before James goes on his journey. One such element is the weird recurring motif of a rhino made of smoke and lightning that "gobbled up his poor mother and father" and what's supposed to be sad is just kind of left confusing because it's delivered in a blink of an eye with James' Parents gone within an absurdly short amount of time. The strangeness of James' Parents' death is so headscratching that it kind of makes the rest of the fantastical journey James takes on the peach with robotic sharks and undead pirates seem reserved by comparison. The movie is also a musical but unlike the songs from Nightmare Before Christmas, the soundtrack provided by Randy Newman just isn't on the same level with a lot of the songs feeling very similar to each other and never standing out. Randy Newman writes four songs that appear in the film (and one he sings over the credits) and the songs "My Name is James", "That's the Life For Me", "Eating the Peach", and "Family" just feel like they're here to extend the runtime rather than serve any narrative purpose as they're basically just dead stops in the already loose narrative that don't convey any character information nor sound all that memorable.
James and the Giant Peach has deservedly been recognized for its ambition and creativity, but it's also a slightly messy film with elements that don't come together like they should. While the movie's atmosphere, visuals, and characters have charm to spare, the writing struggles in giving substance to the dream-like episodic nature of the story. While the movie won't be to everyone's tastes it's too unique and strange of an experiment to deprive yourself of.
James and the Giant Peach is an adaptation the 1961 book of the same name by author Roald Dahl. Disney animator Joe Ranft had attempted to convince Disney staff to produce a film based on the book as far back as the early 80s as Ranft had been enamored with the book since reading it as a child. Disney refused due to the expensive animation process as well as the weird subject matter which was very "dreamy" and episodic. Disney eventually acquired the rights in 1992 from Dahl's widow Felicy and began developing the film. Dennis Potter of The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven wrote one of the early drafts but was ultimately rejected due to being too "dark and bizarre" with one sticking point being the shark attack episode having the sharks be Nazis. The final draft is attributed to Karey Kirkpatrick, Jonathan Roberts, and Steve Bloom. Henry Selick was brought on to direct, but there was debate on how to approach the material with Disney skeptical of the stop-motion process and whether the film should be entirely stop-motion. Eventually Selick opted for distinct live-action and stop-motion sequences abandoning the idea that James would be a live-action actor interacting with stop-motion elements (thought some parts do feature such an approach). Upon release, critical reception was positive with many complimenting the creativity of the visuals, characters, and animation, while the story and live-action elements were subject to some criticism. The movie was also an underperformer at the box office opening at number two behind Primal Fear and making $28 million against its $38 million budget, a step down from Nightmare Before Christmas' $50 million. The movie did eventually do better on home video and attained a cult audience that appreciated the weirdness on display, and while there's a lot to admire there's also issues in the storytelling and execution that keep you from being fully engaged.
To start off on a positive note, James and the Giant Peach has a unique look. In contrast to the twisted and dark iconography from Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach has its own visual identity with softer designs, brighter colors, and grander scope and it provides a unique experience separate from Selick's visions of Christmas and Halloween Town from Nightmare. The movie features a wide array of noted character actors providing the voices of the giant bugs and thanks to Selick's animation on the distinctive models as well as the actor's vocal delivery we get a good sense of who these characters are as well as their personalities. Paul Terry's does perfectly fine as James even if he's maybe a little uncertain in his performance, but since he's established as an audience proxy it works for the direction they take. The live-action sequences in the film were and still are slightly divisive and while I can understand why, for the style they go for I think it works. The sets are designed to look deliberately artificial looking but also timeless and there's an attempt to emulate the contrast of something like 1939's The Wizard of Oz, and while it doesn't quite work to that level, it's probably in the same messy but appealing section of something like 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
The writing in the film is probably the biggest issue as it's a very loosely structured narrative with a lot of surreal elements that don't have much internal logic even before James goes on his journey. One such element is the weird recurring motif of a rhino made of smoke and lightning that "gobbled up his poor mother and father" and what's supposed to be sad is just kind of left confusing because it's delivered in a blink of an eye with James' Parents gone within an absurdly short amount of time. The strangeness of James' Parents' death is so headscratching that it kind of makes the rest of the fantastical journey James takes on the peach with robotic sharks and undead pirates seem reserved by comparison. The movie is also a musical but unlike the songs from Nightmare Before Christmas, the soundtrack provided by Randy Newman just isn't on the same level with a lot of the songs feeling very similar to each other and never standing out. Randy Newman writes four songs that appear in the film (and one he sings over the credits) and the songs "My Name is James", "That's the Life For Me", "Eating the Peach", and "Family" just feel like they're here to extend the runtime rather than serve any narrative purpose as they're basically just dead stops in the already loose narrative that don't convey any character information nor sound all that memorable.
James and the Giant Peach has deservedly been recognized for its ambition and creativity, but it's also a slightly messy film with elements that don't come together like they should. While the movie's atmosphere, visuals, and characters have charm to spare, the writing struggles in giving substance to the dream-like episodic nature of the story. While the movie won't be to everyone's tastes it's too unique and strange of an experiment to deprive yourself of.