an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I registered this account just want to say something about this film.I know it's stupid to concentrate on logic in a fantasy movie, especially when it's a kid's movie, but it just seem to be odd for me. Does the RHINO actually mean anything? Rhinos definitely do not eat meat in reality, then how could a rhino be able to eat this child's parents? If the rhino is just a symbol of devil or nightmare, then the animal must be supposed to be dangerous and aggressive. Imagine elephants as villains in the movie (no, not Dumbo!)... Maybe a dragon or a snake will make more sense. I'm going to consider it's just a bad excuse to "dump your Disney parent", XD. The peach is kind of confusing too. I mean, in a fantasy movie, it's not quite impossible to make a peach big enough and strong enough to travel around world, like UP. However, in the part when they try to eat the peach, I just find it very gross. That color looks like only the rotten fruit has. Does that mean the peach is a metaphor of APPLE OF SODOM?The man who sell green magic powder seems not very positive... Something that can realize all your dream... Just my opinion.All the things in arctic are just misleading. If all of that take place in Amazon, it can be so much funnier and reasonable! The way that two bad aunts end is scary... Maybe young kids won't realize how much pain there is to suffocate. Since the boy just like Cinderella, why can't the story ends like forgiving? The original versions of this fairytale are cruel too, but in a kid's movie it should ends more warm and spiring.The songs didn't have much to show. Therefore maybe a few songs would be better?In a word, this film has it's own adventures and... It has great idea, amazing creation and good animation. Ignoring these logical problems, this film is very funny. It may not be an amazing kid's movie, but it's a regular movie. The details just need to get better!

This classic from the classic 1961 children's novel by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) was created and directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) in 1995, five years after Dahl's death. Dahl had refused numerous film proposals for the book, but his widow approved this one. Selick's plan was to make either the insect companions or the entire film stop-motion animation, but due to budgetary concerns, the film is approximately 1/3 live action time-wise, and completely stop-motion animation during the peach journey adventure, which works just fine. Newcomer Paul Terry does a fine job as James, both in the live acting and the voice-work. However Joanna Lumley should definitely be indicted for and convicted of scene theft, if not film theft, as one of James's two vicious aunts. The stop-motion insects are voiced by Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Jane Leeves, David Thewlis, and (my favorite) Susan Sarandon as a mysterious Spider. In the live-action part, Pete Postlethwaithe has an important role. I have not read the original much-loved and much-revered (especially in the UK) novel, so I cannot comment on the film's faithfulness. However, as an adult I found the film cute, interesting, enjoyable, and entertaining -- and at 79 minutes it never palls. It's a film that can and will be enjoyed by viewers of all ages, so it's excellent for multiple generations and thus, for instance, holiday and other family gatherings.

From all the movies made for children I've seen in the last years, "James and The Giant Peach" seems to be the weakest of them all. You know, from the get go the characters proved to be very formulaic, and so did the story, given that the "mad uncles" versus "innocent nephew" has been already used a thousand times before. Not only that, but the "trip" inside the peach has nothing interesting to offer, besides a bad animation with non-sense characters. I know it was made in 1995, but we had great animations in the nineties, and such low quality doesn't have an excuse to be that way. The whole thing felt so boring and shiftless that I turned it off before the movie completed one hour, and it's a very hard thing for me to do. All in all, "James and the Giant Peach" is just a clumsy film out there, and no wonder why it has basically no recognition.

I first saw this soon after it first came out, when I was about 11 or 12. I was really disappointed in it then - I couldn't get over all the changes from the book.Fifteen or so years later, I've rewatched it, having become familiar with Henry Selick's other work. And this time I really enjoyed it.The animation is high quality, despite being less ambitious than Selick's two other major films (the animated parts of James and the Giant Peach make up a film only about half the length of Coraline, and there aren't any of the huge crowds of characters that filled The Nightmare Before Christmas).The songs, however, are nowhere near as good as those of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The less said about James' solo song at the start of the film the better. The only really good song in the movie also happens to be the only one that takes its lyrics from a rhyme in Dahl's book.Now that this film has surprised me by being better than I remembered, despite its big changes from the book, perhaps I should give Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory another chance to do the same...