As such, the film is a strong piece for youngsters, but doesn’t quite resonate on other levels.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 4, 2022

Underrated animated film from director Henry Selick

| Nov 14, 2021

...valiantly attempts to convey the amazement and childlike sense-of-wonder so characteristic of the late Dahl's books, and while it does succeed occasionally, more often than not it falls flat.

| Original Score: C | Apr 12, 2019

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.

| Feb 23, 2018

The film is a technical tour de force, featuring a wealth of inventive design ideas. But James never develops the emotional dimension that Nightmare possessed.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 11, 2014

A snappy, fun adaptation that entertains young viewers without speaking down to them.

| Nov 11, 2014

This film adaptation of his James and the Giant Peach, though capturing Dahl's comic brilliance, does not shy away from the tale's surreal grimness.

| Nov 11, 2014

As a tribute to the cranky genius of Dahl, it's both fond and, in the best sense, fruitful.

| Nov 18, 2013

A truly sinister fairy story laced with bizarre characters -- both live-action and animated -- James and the Giant Peach from Walt Disney Pictures is a stunning, if not markedly macabre, adaptation of author Roald Dahl's best-selling 1961 book.

| Nov 18, 2013

A brief nightmare sequence, which appears to be some sort of hallucinatory blend of collage and live action, is simply one of the greatest bits of animation I've ever seen.

| Nov 18, 2013

Ultimately, though, it isn't nearly as flavorful as Roald Dahl's deliciously perverse children's book, upon which the movie is based.

| Nov 18, 2013

This movie remembers what fun is.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2013

James and the Giant Peach shines with weird, whimsical invention.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 18, 2013

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

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 18, 2013

One of the brightest, giddiest and most outlandishly exciting of all the Disney Studio's recent major feature cartoons.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 18, 2013

James and the Giant Peach proves the best effects are even better with a strong story.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 18, 2013

The fantasy is almost too inventive for its own good.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 18, 2013

It's Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margolyes as the ghastly Spiker and Sponge who steal this wonderfully pantomimic show.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2013

It was a bold choice to mix live-action and stop-motion, and it's not something you'd see today given the pervasiveness of CGI.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 1, 2012

At its lyrical best, James and the Giant Peach, an adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1961 children's classic, evokes the casual enchantment of a book that, for many kids (including me), cast the spell of a goofily blissed-out mirage.

| Original Score: B | Sep 7, 2011