James and the Giant Peach

Locations
Call Number: Blu-ray Animation James
On Shelf At: Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Westgate Adult A/V 1-week checkout	Blu-ray Animation James	1-week checkout	On Shelf

Originally released as a motion picture in 1996.
Bonus features: "Spike the aunts" interactive game; production featurette: An inside look at the making of the film; "Good news" music video (performed by Randy Newman); original theatrical trailer.
Voices of: Pete Postlethwaite, Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon.
An adaptation of Roald Dahl's fantasy about a boy, tended by two aunts, who discovers a magic pathway inside a giant peach. Together with some insect friends, he sets sail for the city of his dreams. Special features include.
Blu-ray Disc, widescreen; 1080p High Definition; 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio (English), 5.1 Dolby digital (French, Spanish); requires Blu-ray player.
Contents: James and the giant peach.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Awesome submitted by mysterio on August 11, 2011, 8:34am Awesome

Loved it! submitted by leehannah on July 20, 2012, 8:01pm I loved the book and the movie wasn't as good, but it was still pretty amazing.

Okay submitted by jangmikyoung on July 20, 2012, 8:01pm I thought this movie was okay and of course, Blu-ray made it better!

Good submitted by downing on July 25, 2015, 7:12pm Not my favorite, but a decent watch

cute movie submitted by Jackie77 on August 9, 2015, 9:29pm Fantastic kids movie. James and "his" peach was a favorite of my kids and now my nieces too

Loved it! submitted by Xris on June 26, 2018, 11:17am The songs they sing, the voice actors are all awesome! Great Roald Dahl story to make this animation from. A family favorite!

James and the Giant Peach submitted by SBNB on July 23, 2021, 12:47pm The movie is kind of weird, and I didn't really like any of the characters. But it still moved along quickly enough, and my 7 year old liked it.

Horrible submitted by TLW1998 on June 20, 2022, 11:26pm I loved this book as a kid, but I hated this morning. I could not wait for it end.

James and the Giant Peach submitted by leighsprauer on November 22, 2023, 7:58am First of all, Roald Dahl writes some crazy stuff, and it's really hard to convey it in film without making a deeply weird movie. But James and the Giant Peach really takes the cake. It does do some things right: it conveys James' loneliness and his aunts' cruelty well. It attempts to convey the personalities of the insects, although it does not do nearly as good of a job as the book does. I suppose it's too much to ask to have a true-to-life depiction of giant earthworms and beetles and such, but the animation is in a style reminiscent of Tim Burton, which apparently some people like, but I find deeply off-putting. I suppose it was done to show the fantastical nature of the creatures, but it's hard to see the 'humanity' in the insects when their form is so alien. There were also some plot elements that really detracted from the story: why was the shark a machine? what was the deal with the skeleton pirates? It seemed like they were trying to think up ways to make the story even weirder, which was not only not necessary, but very un-Dahl-like. As fantastical as his stories were, his genius was that the craziness never seemed arbitrary. Finally, some parts were just simply unpleasant. Is there a way to show people eating handfuls of peach flesh that does not make your own flesh crawl? Maybe, maybe not. But it was actually repulsive, and unlike Denethor eating the tomato, I don't think it was intended to be.
In short, they ruined a great book.