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Title: James and the Giant Peach (1996)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Simon Callow | ... | Grasshopper (voice) | |
| Richard Dreyfuss | ... | Centipede (voice) | |
| Jane Leeves | ... | Ladybug (voice) | |
| Joanna Lumley | ... | Aunt Spiker | |
| Miriam Margolyes | ... | Aunt Sponge / Glowworm (voice) | |
| Pete Postlethwaite | ... | Old Man | |
| Susan Sarandon | ... | Spider (voice) | |
 |
Paul Terry | ... | James |
| David Thewlis | ... | Earthworm (voice) | |
|
|
J. Stephen Coyle | ... | Reporter #2 |
| Steven Culp | ... | James' Father | |
|
|
Cirocco Dunlap | ... | Girl with Telescope |
|
|
Michael Girardin | ... | Reporter #1 |
| Tony Haney | ... | Reporter #3 | |
| Kathryn Howell | ... | Woman in Bathrobe (as Kathrine Howell) | |
James' happy life at the English seaside is rudely ended when his parents are killed by a rhinoceros and he goes to live with his two horrid aunts. Daringly saving the life of a spider he comes into possession of magic boiled crocodile tongues, after which an enormous peach starts to grow in the garden. Venturing inside, he meets not only the spider but a number of new friends including a ladybug and a centipede who help him with his plan to try to get to New York. Written by Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
The 1996 Disney filmization of Roald Dahl's first book for children, 1961's "James and the Giant Peach," is a delightful confection that, like its original, should prove as much fun for the adults as the kiddies. The film hews fairly closely to its source material, with some important differences, and really is quite the exemplar of modern-day animation arts. In it, we are introduced to James Henry Trotter, an orphaned boy whose miserable existence with his two witchlike aunts takes a decided turn for the better when a mysterious old man gives him a bagful of magical green crystals. These crystals cause the previously barren peach tree in his front yard to grow the titular giant fruit, and James soon meets, inside the stone of the fruit, six new friends, giants all: a grasshopper, a spider, an earthworm, a glowworm, a ladybug and a centipede (the book's silkworm character, for some reason, has been omitted). The seven make a hazardous trans-Atlantic journey to NYC aboard the peach, a journey that tests the mettle of each of the team indeed. The film differs from Dahl's book in that the journey to NYC is a goal, rather than a happy accident. The film also tones down the book's violence (James' aunts are not killed in the film), turns the shark into some kind of killer robot, and, most unwisely, drops the entire sequence with the Cloud Men in favor of a haunted pirate ship not at all present in Dahl's text. The nature of the rhino that ate James' parents is also, strangely, much altered. The filmmakers have added some musical numbers to the mix, and although Randy Newman's charms are usually lost on me, I found his five contributions here to be quite entertaining. The picture blends live action, stop-motion animation and what looks to be (in James' dream) animated collages seamlessly and effectively, and the whole production really is something of a technical marvel. Despite the changes, this is one very winning entertainment indeed.