SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.

Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

paulclaassen I found this more of a cartoon than an animated feature, and quite kiddy-ish, actually. This was just way too far-fetched for an animated film. Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid.

SnoopyStyle James had a happy life in the English seaside about to travel to NYC. His parents are killed by an imagined rhinoceros and he has to live with his evil Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge. He saves a spider from Spiker. A mysterious man (Pete Postlethwaite) gives him a bag of magic which holds the possibility of going to NYC. James trips and drops the magic in the garden. A peach starts to grow on a barren tree. Spiker and Sponge sell tickets to see the giant peach. That night, James takes a bit of the peach and climbs into it. As he climbs inside, it turns into stop motion animation.I really dislike the live action start or ending of the movie. It's not only ugly but it's also tiresome. It's meant to be magical but it reminds me of the badly made Popeye. There is no arguing that the stop motion animation is something amazing. It is imaginative and filled with fun characters. It's also great to see Jack again. The movie could probably use some good catchy pop songs. The reliance on Randy Newman is something done back then and there is no breakout song from this movie. It's an obvious deficiency to do all those talky Broadway songs. It would be better to push more towards action adventures with a consistent villain chasing them. It should have kept up with the rhinoceros as a constant threat. James should have done several hand-to-hand combat with the rino more than that one magical confrontation.

Various_Things 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...

johnno74 A British orphan's, James Henry Trotter, dreams of emigrating to New York City are scuppered when his parents are killed surprisingly by a rhinoceros who appears 'from nowhere'. As a result, he is forced to live with his two spiteful aunts, Spiker & Sponge, who treat him like a labourer and feed him very bad food. One day, James receives a peach from a mysterious stranger. He explores the inside and enters in a strange world, which may lead to his dreams coming true again. James & The Giant Peach is based on Roald Dahl's weakest novel. Tim Burton and Henry Sellick's film adaption is a larger disappointment compared to the book. I, of course, mean no offence to them as their other films, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline prove a lot better than this garbage. Here are the reasons why James & The Giant Peach is toxic. What you, as a viewer, are analysing as you watch the film is a synopsis which is exactly the same as in the novel; completely random, lost and quite frankly, dumb. There is no reason why a rhino would eat a human being (or two as shown in the film), and in England as well. I'd probably understand if it was from a zoo, but that's where the characters belong. This brings me onto the next bad point; the acting. It is abysmal. There are too many repeated lines i.e. the aunts stating, 'Work, work, work' and lines such as 'How dare you disagree' said over and over again. Anybody who writes a screenplay needs to think carefully about the dialogue you use. Joanna Lumley was so much better as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous and Victoria's mother in The Corpse Bride. But it's Paul Terry who makes a huge mess of the film. He overacts and quotes some of the worst lines in cinematic history. Even the songs cannot grow any excitement. Instead they include the most overrated melodies and over-repeated songs. That's The Life? It'll tire anybody sitting on a seat in a cinema and cause butt-ache. The songs are absolutely abysmal and the film is simply the worst to have been associated with Walt Disney Pictures (distributor), the second being the equally toxic Pocahontas, whose songs ain't as bad as on this. Good animation work though.