James and the Giant Peach (PG, 1996)

James (Paul Terry) has an idyllic life with parents who imagine taking him to New York City -- until they're killed by a charging rhino coming out of a cloud. James suddenly finds himself bunking in the attic of his aunts' home. 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. They also threaten to beat him regularly. James obtains 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" spills them on the roots of a petrified peach tree. Soon, the tree grows a giant peach, and James discovers inside it six insects that become his family.

The characters in JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH, unfortunately, come from central casting: the baffoonish Brooklyn centipede (Richard Dreyfuss), the elderly, hard-of-hearing lightning 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 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 Spider-Man 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?