Roald Dahl's first book for children, "James and the Giant Peach," was a favorite at my house when my children were younger, and one of my sons appeared in a grade-school production of the story.
So, it was with some familiarity that I approached Disney's stop-motion animated adaptation, produced by the folks that gave us "The Nightmare Before Christmas." And though there have been a few relatively minor changes, the film is generally quite faithful, retaining the book's humor, familial spirit and even its darker edges.
Taking a cue from older, more classical children's tales - everything from "Alice in Wonderland" to "Cinderella" - "James and the Giant Peach" begins with a lengthy live-action sequence, filmed on stylized sets, as we meet James (Paul Terry) and his parents, living an idyllic life on the seashore.
But when James' parents are killed by a giant rhinoceros (which is not shown), he finds himself living with a pair of ghoulish, self-centered aunts (Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes) who work him to death and barely feed him.
After a time, James meets an itinerant traveler (Pete Postlethwaite) who gives him a batch of magical alligator tongues, and when one escapes into a tree in the yard, the result is a giant peach. So, naturally, James crawls inside, and there he meets a group of enlarged creepy-crawlies who become his family - a spider (voiced by Susan Sarandon), a centipede (Richard Dreyfuss), a ladybug (Jane Leeves), an earthworm (David Thewlis), a grasshopper (Simon Callow) and a glowworm (Margolyes again).
With help from 100 seagulls, James sails on the peach toward New York City, having a number of harrowing, exciting and amusing adventures along the way.
As with the book, the various characters are all well developed, each with a distinctive personality and a number of comical personality traits. And the animation team has given the characters intricate detail, right down to the high-heel shoes on the spider and the independent movement of all 100 of the centipede's legs.
The unique style here does take some getting used to, and the film becomes more and more enjoyable as it goes along - and it may be even better with repeat viewings (something that proved to be true of "The Nightmare Before Christmas").
There are some scary moments, as when the peach is adrift in the ocean and a giant, mechanized shark attacks, and when they go undersea to get supplies from a sunken ship (a scene that is not in the book), and Jack Skellington (from "The Nightmare Before Christmas") makes a cameo appearance. But nothing here is any scarier than what can be found in any classic fairy tale.
The actors seem to be having a great time, especially Sarandon and Dreyfuss, who both affect accents, and the songs, by Randy Newman (who also scored "Toy Story"), are bouncy and enjoyable. And the script throws in a number of funny one-liners, non sequiturs and throwaway gags.
Also noteworthy is the gorgeous, abstract animation, showcased in a number of stunning sequences. In fact, one of the things proven by this eye-popping piece of work is that there is plenty of room in movie theaters for all styles of animation - from hand-drawn ("Pocahontas") to computer-generated ("Toy Story") to clay-molded (the "Wallace & Gromit" Oscar-winners) to the stop-motion method used here.
"James and the Giant Peach" is rated PG for violence (most of it comic in nature) and a couple of mildly vulgar gags.