James and the Giant Peach 1996
I’m not sure why I never saw this movie, but maybe I didn’t want to try another stop motion animation movie by Tim Burton after watching The Nightmare Before Christmas. I never read Roald Dahl’s book, though a friend of mine said it was one of his favorites growing up. This is definitely more of a kid’s movie and we’ve seen a lot of this before about an unhappy orphan kid being mistreated by his guardians and using escapism and his imagination to get away from them. The movie is entertaining enough, but there isn’t much for grown-ups here. The movie is pretty short at only 90 minutes and the animated portion is sandwiched between a live action beginning and ending, which makes it seems like we’re getting that much less bang for the buck. The animated part is good with some decent action sequences and the live action part is okay, with two evil and freaky aunts that might give little kids nightmares. I would have liked to have seen a little more intricate plot than just a series of challenges to be overcome, but I did enjoy seeing the mechanical fish, even if I don’t know why it was there. Another action sequence with ghost pirates sounds better than it was. Still, good for kids maybe.
Written: 12 Mar 2018