James and the Giant Peach - PG
Common Sense Note
Parents should be aware that young James both loses his parents and is forced to live as a servant to abusive relatives. James risks his life in a trip across the ocean. The video may inspire kids to build little hot air balloons with candles, as James does, and it may encourage arachanphilic kids to become even more enamored of their insect friends.
Families who watch this video may want to discuss parents or family members who have left a child's life through death or divorce, and how the film makes them feel. How do we remember the ones we've lost? How does James find a family of friends that provide for him the love he doesn't get from his aunts? What role does imagination play in James's story? How did imagination make him feel better?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Heather Boerner
Monty Python-style animation, stop-motion animation, obvious computer-generated animation and live-action, well, action make this adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl book a compelling but sometimes visually uneven video.
James (Paul Terry) has an idyllic life with parents who imagine taking him to New York City until they are killed by a charging rhino coming out of a cloud. That's your first warning that this is going to be one weird film. James suddenly finds himself bunking in the attic of his aunts' home (with Aunt Spiker played delightfully dastardly by Joanna Lumley of Absolutely Fabulous). He's a servant in their home, and the two women threaten that the rhino that killed his parents will return for him if he disobeys them (read: acts like a child). They also threaten to beat him regularly.
Unsurprisingly, James wants out -- and he gets out using his imagination and some magical crocodile tongues spiced with "the fingers of a young monkey, the gizzard of a pig, the beak of a parrot and three spoonfuls of sugar." When James spills the tongues on the roots of a petrified peach tree, the adventure really begins.
The peach grows the size of a house and soon James is living in it -- transformed from the child actor to a cartoon character -- with six insect friends. Singing ensues, the peach rolls into the ocean and then flies, with the help of 100 harnessed sea gulls, to New York City. Along the way, James and the insects form a family, they each make mistakes, and learn as a result.
The characters, unfortunately, come from central casting: the baffoonish Brooklyn centipede (Richard Dreyfuss), the elderly, hard-of-hearing lightening bug, the femme fatale spider (Susan Sarandon), the gentlemanly grasshopper, the twittering, lady-like lady bug and the scaredy-cat earthworm. The Spider and centipede flirt with each other, but kids will take it as simple entertainment.
The best jokes come from the earthworm, and parents can use some to explain scientific facts to kids. When Earthworm laments that Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge cut his brother in half, he adds, "Now I have two half brothers." Cue the groan of the pun-weary everywhere. But it's still a good opportunity for parents to explain that earthworms can regenerate.
The heart of this story, however, is in James, with whom kids who are struggling to find independence and security within their families will identify. The insect characters are mostly loveable, and also learn lessons along the way.
The only drawbacks are musical numbers that seem to only pad the short film's running time (the first is the worst, though later songs will have kids wiggling right along with the dancing characters), and animation that's unlikely to impress kids raised on Toy Story. When even Spiderman has more realistic computer-generated graphics, kids may roll their eyes at clumsy animation scenes. One scene, in which young James has a nightmare about his aunts coming after him, resembles nothing so much as Monty Python animation on acid. James's head on a cardboard cutout of an insect? Uh, okay. But was it really necessary to throw in yet another form of animation?
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Sexual ContentFlirtation between the Centipede and the Spider. |
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ViolenceScary situations in which James' parents die; James' aunts threaten to beat him. |
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Social BehaviorJames uses his imagination to survive scary situations. The messages of this video, that you can face your fears and you can find people who love you for you, are positive. |
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