James and the giant peach

A

Director Henry Selick maintained the acerbic edge that was Dahl's distinctive edge as a children's writer.

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Tim Burton co-produced James and the Giant Peach and it sports similar styles to his live action fairy tales (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland) and his clay or other animation fantasies (Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas). It's a UK-based 1996 production and a successful adaptation of yet another Roald Dahl comic horror fable for intelligent children.

Dahl's young heroes are always troubled by evil grown-ups; orphan James's are two spiteful spinster sisters (Joanna Lumley and Miriam Margoyles) merrily sneering at the surreal scenery of their seaside hilltop.

James was a first-time boy actor, Paul Terry, who appeared in a few children's TV episodes, played in a band at uni and never returned to the entertainment industry. The only other major human being in the scene-setting intro is an elderly mystery man (Pete Postlethwaite) who gives the ill-used lonely lad a bag of crocodile tongues, one of which turns into the titular Giant Peach.

The enormous deus ex machina has no personality per se. Instead it is home for a wrangling group of animated insects with a variety of powers and personalities: star-voiced by Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Jane (later Frasier TV regular) Leeves, Susan Sarandon and David Thewlis. When James flees his horrible aunts and enters the peach, he becomes a stop-motion animation figure too, as a charming accidental hero leading the peach and his new friends on their flight to NYC courtesy of spider web strings attached to a flock of seagulls.

Their trip is packed with fearsome adventures and several insect songs and dances (cue the ubiquitous Randy Newman). Infant viewers may gyrate, adults will ho-and-hum: the material is better than children's TV, but it isn't old-style hand-drawn Disney cartoon quality. It has a grittier less homely quality.

All ends well in NYC, except for the aunts; and director Henry Selick (Nightmare with Burton, and Coraline most recently) rightly maintained the acerbic edge that was Dahl's distinctive edge as a children's writer.