James and the Giant Peach

Year: 1996
Country: United States
Director: Henry Selick
Watched through: library VHS

The scenario: Little James lives an idyllic life until his parents die and he is forced to live with two terrible aunts. Even when his life is bleak, however, he still maintains his ultimate dream of going to New York City. His dream comes true in the most unusual of ways: a giant peach grows outside his house, and together with six kooky bugs, he is able to fly it across the ocean.

First impressions: I saw this film in theaters when it first came out; considering that it was directed by the same guy who gave us The Nightmare Before Christmas and is based on a book by the always-brilliant Roald Dahl, one would think that this film would leave a lasting impression. Somehow, however, it didn’t. Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs way up, but after re-watching it last night, I have to admit that I don’t get what they saw in it. It’s just as forgettable to me now as it was when I was seven.

Plot and story: Having never read the book this film is based on, I can’t comment on how faithful the plot is. I am, however, inclined to think that the plot of the original is somewhat more gripping and makes a good deal more sense than the film does. After a lengthy and very cheesy live-action introduction, we get into the main adventure of the film, which is, of course, the journey to New York. Since the conflict between the members of the main cast is minimal, most of the danger and tension has to be dropped in from outside sources. Unfortunately for the film, these sources include a giant mechanical shark and horribly-rendered ghosts in a sunken pirate ship, neither of which are there for any logical reason. The story, overall, is very thin and the way it plays out on screen is pretty boring. The plot dragged despite the film’s short running time, and even the climax was stretched beyond its limits of interest. Some parts of the story are simply baffling as well, including the quickly passed-over detail about how James’ parents die. Overall, even though this is obviously a fantasy, suspension of disbelief never took hold, and I was never really engaged with the story. 11/20

Characters: Although the story is so-so, the characters don’t fare too badly. We certainly have a colorful cast, including a solitary spider, a pompous grasshopper, a snide centipede, a dainty ladybug, a neurotic worm, a deaf glow bug, and, of course, generous and thoughtful James. Most of them manage to learn something and change for the better within the story (especially the centipede and grasshopper, who initially don’t like each other), so they get points for being dynamic, and all of them are generally likeable. James himself is a cute hero, but is fairly dull when compared to his bug companions. The villains were also pretty lame, having neither motivation nor any detectable personality outside of the mean things they do. The decent characters redeem the thin story somewhat, but not all of them are great. 16/20

Voices: Though we have an unknown in the title role, there are several “name” actors in this film. Susan Sarandon, for example, provides a sultry, accented voice for the spider, and left me wondering why she doesn’t do more voiceovers. Richard Dreyfuss lends a lot of character to the centipede, Joanna Lumley gets passing marks for her live-action role as evil Aunt Spiker, and David Thewlis (whom you may know as Lupin in the Harry Potter movies) does a good job as the earthworm. Not bad overall. 16/20

Music: Well, it’s a musical, but don’t expect any Disney material. The songs were written by Randy Newman, who also did the songs for the overlooked Cats Don’t Dance and the much-anticipated The Princess and the Frog. The songs are okay, but they all bring the story to a screeching halt, and in the end they’re very forgettable (subjects of the lyrics include what the characters want to find in New York and the different ways they can eat the giant peach). The score in equally bland, and the music overall is just as empty as the plot. 11/20

Visuals: The stop-motion is great, that’s for sure. So it begs the question: why aren’t the puppets used for the entire film? The live-action segments that bookend the film don’t even nearly achieve the stylization or visual interest the animation does, and they make the film look corny and dated. I haven’t got any complaints about the quality of the animation; good character design, smooth movements, decent special effects. Without the live-action, the look of the film would have been SO much more appealing. 15/20

Overall grade: 69/100 (B)

Alice

Year: 1988
Country: Czechoslovakia
Director: Jan Svankmajer
Watched through: library VHS
Also known as: Neco z Alenky

The scenario: A very bored Alice falls asleep in her room and then follows the elusive White Rabbit through a desk drawer into a sinister, surreal dream land.

First impressions: This is one of the innumerable film versions of Lewis Carroll’s famous book. So, my first impression was, why bother? This story has been done almost as many times as Cinderella and Peter Pan; what’s different about this version? Well, the atmosphere is certainly different. The whimsy of the original is replaced here with a vague sense of dread, and the grotesque aspects of the dream land are played up in every scene. While it seems like a creative approach to a familiar story, the film itself is actually very dull. I’m aware that this film has a large cult following, but I don’t see anything likeable in it. Also, though it claims to be for children, any kid who watched it would probably alternate between being bored and being grossed out.

Plot and story: While it would seem obvious that this film has a story, since it is, after all, based on a book, it can’t hold a narrative thread to save its life. Alice enters the dream world while chasing the White Rabbit, and what follows is a series of long, dull, and ultimately pointless scenes showing how she navigates the dream world (all white fruitlessly pleading for the Rabbit to wait for her). The scenes have little to no bearing on each other, and could probably be re-arranged in any order without affecting the conclusion. I don’t know how faithful the plot is to the book, and I don’t care. When it comes down to it, there is no suspense, no meaningful connections between the individual scenes, and no real narrative. The result is a ridiculously dull movie that feels like twice its 85 minute running time. 4/20

Characters: What characters? Sure, we have our protagonist and the bizarre inhabitants of the dream world, but none of them come close to having anything resembling character development, or even a personality. Alice is bored and rather impetuous, but not much else. The White Rabbit frets a lot and makes demands, but has no characterization beyond this. The rest of the puppet cast is even flatter. As a side note, why does Alice start out wanting to follow the Rabbit, then trying to kill him, then wanting to follow him again? It makes no sense. 3/20

Voices: I actually have to talk about this one in the singular: there’s only one voice. Now, this film is originally in Czech, and I watched it in English. This wouldn’t seem like a problem but for the fact that part of the film (and all of the dialogue) is live-action. The bottom line about dubbing voices onto live-action film is, it doesn’t work. There’s very little talking, but all of the dialogue, no matter who it’s attributed to, is spoken by Alice, in uncomfortable close-ups of her lips. Having Alice say, “oh my, said that White Rabbit” gets tiresome very quickly, and the English-speaking actress isn’t that good. 1/20

Music: There isn’t any, oddly enough. n/a

Visuals: One might assume that this is the real reason to see this film, as macabre stop-motion always seems to find an audience. However, neither the designs nor the physical animation are anything to write home about. Some of the puppets are very creative in appearance, but most of them are pretty damn ugly. The backgrounds and settings are intentionally gross and sinister, but none of them are terribly interesting. The frame-by-frame animation is extremely jerky and looks astoundingly amateur in places. Furthermore, the combination of live-action and stop-motion doesn’t work at all. The transitions between the two are glaringly obvious, and the difference in frame rates only makes the animated parts look worse. I can’t imagine that this was anything but a labor of love for the creators, but the film seems somehow unfinished, and since the visuals can’t make up for the film’s other shortcomings, I have to recommend that you skip this one. 7/20

Overall grade: 15/80 = about 19/100 (F)