JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: This is a film that is creative and
bizarre, but curiously off-center and unengaging.
Disney Studios and Tim Burton bring Roald Dahl's
off-beat children's fantasy about a fantastic
trans-Atlantic peach flight to the screen. The
film seems to be trying to recapture some of the
originality that THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS
had. However, Caroline Thompson's hand is sadly
missed in the writing, and the Randy Newman score
lacks the energy that Danny Elfman would have given
it. There is nothing memorable at all about the
songs. JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH is more a
curiosity than an entertainment. Rating: 0 (-4 to
+4)
Tim Burton makes two types of films. One type has plots that are concatenations of really odd scenes, strong on visual composition, but without much story to glue the scenes together. His other type of films are the ones written by Caroline Thompson. Thompson has a way of sewing together weird images into a story that has emotional impact. JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH is an attempt to follow up the excellent THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS with another weird animation piece. Perhaps this time Thompson was off directing her terrific adaptation of BLACK BEAUTY. Or perhaps producer Burton may have felt he did not need Thompson's story since he was adapting a book by Roald Dahl and only needed to turn it into a script. In any case her hand is sorely missed in this film of an animated boy and friends who seem to be magical giant versions of garden "pests."
Watching the film, the viewer is never quite sure where the plot is going in this story with its plot turns that border on a psychedelic dream with a slight fairy tale quality. As the story opens, James is a very contented and well-adjusted little live-action boy. He is living happily with his loving parents who promise to take him from England to see New York City. Then they are suddenly eaten by a mysterious mystical rhinoceros. James is forced to go live with his two aunts, overly-painted grotesques who seem to hate children and garden pests about equally. James, on the other hand, rather likes spiders and other creepy- crawlies. His aunts feed him on fish heads and place him in virtual slavery while they sit around each day admiring themselves and finding ways to make James more miserable. Luckily, however, a mysterious man gives James some magical green glowing crocodile tongues which when accidentally dropped cause a tree to sprout a peach the size of a house. (I'm really not making this up, you know!) When the peach opens a hole, James goes in and turns into an animated boy who meets friends who are a spider, a centipede, a grasshopper, a ladybug, and a worm. When the peach gets loose and rolls into the sea, James is off to try to find New York City with the enthusiastic animals he has met. Along the way the crew has to fight dangers like mechanical sharks.
Paul Terry has the title role (well, at least the first half of the title) and is the main character, but being a child gets eighth billing. He gets his revenge by having absolutely no voice when called on to sing, though he does just fine in the acting scenes. Top billing goes to major actors who voiced the animated creatures in the peach, not that they are really there for anything but marquee value. The voices are Simon Callow as the erudite Grasshopper; Richard Dreyfuss as the cigar-chomping, low-brow centipede; Jane Leeves as the Ladybug; Susan Sarandon as the resourceful spider; and David Thewlis (of NAKED and RESTORATION) as the Earthworm. The writing gives none of these creatures much personality beyond funny voices and only the most threadbare of characterizations. A little better characterization goes to Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes as the two aunts, though that is perhaps because we get to see them in live-action. Also a cameo role goes to Jack Skellington, the main character of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
The film does better with its visualization than it does with its story, but those who were hoping for the detailed careful work of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS will be disappointed. The animation in that film was a genuine tour-de-force, with something interesting happening in just about every corner of the screen in nearly every frame. There were a lot of throw-away humor and clever ideas in the animation that is just missing from the animation scenes here. The live-action scenes have some very nice stylized sets. Even in the animation scenes there is a great variety of visual styles from scene to scene. Be warned there is a lot in this film that younger children may find frightening. There is a lot that the adults in the audience will find unusual, but much of it just does not quite work. (Be aware there is one more bizarre little final scene for those who sit though the credits.)
The story of JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH is unusual and creative, often a stylistic plus, but here there just is not very much to chew on in the story and nobody to really care about. It is hard to imagine that the loss that James suffers at the beginning of the film is in any degree offset by what James gains in the course of the film. The story, which I am told varies a great deal from the book, just is not a very good one. I rate this film, on the basis of some of the more interesting visuals, a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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