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Dom Robinson reviews

Roald Dahl's
James and the Giant Peach

Marvellous things will happen !

Distributed by

Cat.no: P 8870 DVD
Cert: U
Running time: 76 minutes
Year: 1996
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 15 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £24.99
Extras : Scene index, Theatrical trailer, Featurette, Music video

Director:

Henry Selick

Producers:

Denise Di Novi and Tim Burton

Screenplay:

Karey Kirkpatrick, Jonathan Roberts and Steve Bloom

based on the book by Roald Dahl

Music:

Randy Newman

Featuring the voices of:

Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Jane Leeves,
Susan Sarandon, David Thewlis

Miriam Margolyes

James and the Giant Peach is a Roald Dahl book which many children will have grown up reading in addition to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". However, when a film has had a hand in it from Tim Burton, director of the first two Batman films and The Nightmare Before Christmas, you know you'll be seeing something a little different.

James (Paul Terry) discovers a tree nearby the house he has to share with two old hags.. I mean his charming aunts, Spiker (Joanna Lumley and Sponge (Miriam Margolyes), after his parents were eaten by a giant rhino (don't you just hate it when that happens ?) It has no leaves but only a small peach. Before long it's grown into the giant peach that the title alights to. After Spiker and Sponge have gone back into the house, James helps himself to some of it, uncovering an entrance. After climbing inside, that's where his adventures begin.

With his insect friends, his aim is to travel to New York, the peach being flown there by the seagulls attached, although a number of hazards try to put them off along the way such as a giant, mechanical shark and, of course, that rhino. Yes, this is more a film for children, but it will hold everyone else's interest on initial viewing and there's also the occasional quip such as that from the earthworm who makes a crack about his brother being cut in half, resulting in "two half-brothers".

The film is presented in its theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 and is anamorphically-enhanced for widescreen TV's, resulting in a 33% increase in picture resolution. I haven't seen the fullscreen version, but I'd imagine the animation will suffer as a result.

Not being an animation expert, it's difficult to tell whether all the characters are CGI-based, or stop-frame animation with the wooden models they appear to be. Either way, it comes across as looking very impressive. The average bitrate is an good 6.40Mb/s, regularly peaking over 8Mb/s.

As well as the songs which sound good in surround, the film's soundtrack is peppered with SFX surrounds used to comic effect as required and in Dolby Digital 5.1.

Extras :

Chapters and Trailer :

There are 15 chapters during the 76-minute film which is a fair number. The theatrical trailer is also included but only lasts 80 seconds.

Languages and Subtitles :

There's just one language on this disc - English, but it is available in Dolby Digital 5.1. There are also English subtitles for the hard of hearing but they tend to appear about a second after the first word has been spoken.

Featurette :

Lasting four-and-a-half minutes, this gives some background info into the film with comments and chat from the cast and crew, but being so short it feels more like an extended trailer.

Music video :

Clips from the film interspersed with Randy Newman singing his own composition, "Good Times".

Menu :

All the menus are static, but are very colourful and each is scored, usually featuring one of the songs from the film.

Adults won't want to watch this film more than once, but it's worth buying if your kids like it. If they've not seen it, rent it first, since £25 is a lot to fork out for something they might not want to sit through on regular occasions. I don't know about a Region 1 DVD, but a NTSC Laserdisc was released in CAV which will also allow perfect still-frame pictures.

FILM	 		: ***
PICTURE QUALITY		: *****
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: **
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ****

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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