James and the Giant Peach

The latest in an impressive string of first-rate movies for kids. Read full review

All in all, James and the Giant Peach is an extraordinary achievement. Read full review

It's a stunning, delightful image adventure like nothing done before on the big screen. Read full review

It's a splendidly designed flight of imagination that soars from the barren grays of England to the Art Deco towers of New York over a shining sea of wrinkled, deep blue velvet. With the movie's mixture of stop-motion animation, digital animation and live action, Roald Dahl's 1961 children's book has found its ideal realization. [12 Apr 1996, p.59]

The mortal in me is increasingly certain I'll never live to see cinema's most astounding achievements. The kid in me is happy to be alive right now. [13 Apr 1996, p.5]

"James" is both genuinely exciting as an adventure and genuinely charming as a fantasy, plus it doesn't look quite like anything we've seen before. [12 Apr 1996]

Imaginative, slightly creepy, but tremendously appealing to all ages. It's ripe to bursting with visual effects a heady combination of stop-motion and computer-generated imagery. And it has a delightful cast of personable bugs and larvae, all bound for New York City via floating fruit. Read full review

Despite a lightness of plot, it most beautifully captures the book's free-floating, fantastic sense of adventure and wonder. Read full review

Peach will enthrall viewers with its blend of comedy, stop-motion animation and special effects. [8 Apr 1996]

I hope we don't have to wait another quarter-century for the next great Dahl adaptation, but for a film as good as this one, I'll wait. Read full review

Shines with weird, whimsical invention. Read full review

Another superb stop-action animated film from the same team responsible for Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Read full review

It's a candy-flavored blast of a movie. But though children may love it, they shouldn't monopolize it. Adults will want to eat this peach, or ride it to Manhattan, just as much. Read full review

The best surprise is Selick's handling of the live-action sequences, notably the opening scenes. Young James (a perfect Paul Terry) works around the surreal sets of Harley Jessup (conceived by illustrator Lane Smith). Read full review

A landmark in animation. [12 Apr 1996, p.AE23]

At its heights, James and the Giant Peach is a shock of pleasure, a juicy immersion into a world both intriguingly weird and consistently magical. [12 Apr 1996]

Dark but brilliant, James and the Giant Peach is cinema fantasy at its best. Dahl would have approved. [12 Apr 1996, p.5G]

The vocal cast are great fun, and the animation is smooth and vibrant. Except for a few treacly songs, this is great entertainment for all. Read full review

Though this film version of James and the Giant Peach is far from a classic, it's both reasonably respectful of its source and consistently enjoyable in its own right. And it passes the acid test of children's entertainment. This movie remembers what fun is. Read full review

Apt to leave a haunting impression on the children who see it. Read full review

It will, I think, entertain kids for whom stop-motion animation is the last thing they're thinking about. Read full review

Obviously, the primary reason to see James and the Giant Peach is for its visual splendor. Read full review

If only they’d trusted it more, they might have made a marvelous kids’ film instead of a merely charming one. Read full review

James and the Giant Peach is a wondrous interpretation of Dahl’s book that revives the magical possibilities of film while liberating our own imaginations as well. Read full review

On the whole, the movie is a success. I still hope that children and their parents will read this wonderful book together, but it's nice that there's a movie they can see, too. Read full review

A handsome, entertaining though emotionally thin animated feature. Read full review

Told through both animation and live action, the fantasy is almost too inventive for its own good, filling the screen with unsettling pictures and situations that could be much too scary for young viewers. Read full review

James is a stunner with a breathtaking array of eye-teasers. [12 Apr 1996]

A technological marvel, arch and innovative with a daringly offbeat visual conception. But it's also a strenuously artful film with a macabre edge that may scare small children. And beyond that, it lacks a clear idea of who its audience might be. Read full review

It's more oriented to the kiddies than Nightmare, but if you want something to watch with your little cousins or nieces or something that will give you something to enjoy as well as them, and you've already seen Tarzan 28 times, check this one out. Read full review

At least there’s plenty to look at among Selick’s beautifully detailed characters, who each have expressive bodies and their own ways of moving. Read full review

As you'd expect from Disney, the film's a technical tour de force, with flawless stop-motion animation and some imaginatively realized live-action sequences. What's surprising here is how much of Dahl's misogyny is allowed to surface. James's elderly aunts are unconscionably grotesque. Read full review

A visual feast of colorful stop-motion animation, offers many bite-size delights. Ultimately, though, it isn't nearly as flavorful as Roald Dahl's deliciously perverse children's book, upon which the movie is based. Read full review

Though certainly not a travesty of any sort, James and the Giant Peach does strike me as the weakest thus far of Dahl’s to-screen adaptations and this mostly has to do with the problems Selick encounters with mixing the world of imagination with the real world. Read full review

Dahl himself thought his book would be impossible to translate into film, and for all the ingenuity that's been thrown at the screen, perhaps he was right. This overgrown peach never ripens. Read full review

the first techno-misfire from Walt Disney Pictures, an over-elaborate film that leaves you feeling harangued, harassed and assaulted. Read full review