MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Giant Peach’ Tries to Capture Magic of Dahl’s Classic Book

Stop-motion animation is an intricate, agonizing process, so slow to produce results it can take six days to turn out 12 seconds of usable screen time. Its latest application in “James and the Giant Peach” makes you wonder why anyone bothered.

Actually, as a combination of stop-motion with live-action footage and computer-generated imagery, “James” is more fiendishly complex than usual. It is also the first techno-misfire from Walt Disney Pictures, an over-elaborate film that leaves you feeling harangued, harassed and assaulted.

There is no secret, of course, as to why hundreds of people (the final credits crawl runs for more than five minutes) worked for years on this project. “James” is based on the classic fantasy by Britain’s Roald Dahl, one of the most celebrated creators of modern children’s literature.

Though the filmmakers have made some changes to the original that don’t help, the problem with this film is not its departures from the canon. If there is a villain here, it’s the egotistical Hollywood notion that any and all successful books are crying out to be made into major motion pictures.

In fact how close screenwriters Karey Kirkpatrick and Jonathan Roberts & Steve Bloom stay to the source only underlines how terribly difficult Dahl is to adapt, though if the Disney advertising and publicity machine kicks into its usual high gear, no one may ever notice.

Prescient in understanding how open to the dark side small readers are, Dahl on the page forges a kind of complicity with children. The nastiness in his writing becomes exhilarating, not off-putting, and the key problem with “James” is that director Henry Selick and his crew have been unable to duplicate that delicious sensation on the screen.

The film opens with James as a flesh-and-blood 9-year-old boy (Paul Terry) living an idyllic existence with his parents. They, regrettably, are soon gobbled up by an angry rhinoceros, and James is foisted off on his nearest relations, the rotund Aunt Sponge (Miriam Margoyles) and the angular Aunt Spiker (“Absolutely Fabulous’ ” Joanna Lumley).

Grotesque harridans who ooze bile and feed James on roasted fish heads when they feed him at all, Spiker and Sponge are not more evil on film than they are on the page, it’s just that giving them life makes them harder to take. Strident, grating and loud, the aunts set an irritating tone for the film that refuses to go away.

Miserable as only a child can be and about to give up hope, James is befriended by a strange old man (Pete Postlethwaite) who hands him a bag of specially treated crocodile tongues, wondrous items guaranteed to work magic on whatever they meet first.

Understandably excited, James drops the bag, and most of the magic goes to a wizened old peach tree, which promptly produces a giant peach the size of a float in the Rose Parade.

Aided by a stray crocodile tongue, James (now represented by a puppet) crawls into the peach and finds himself sharing space in the hollow pit with a motley collection of insects: Grasshopper (voiced by Simon Callow), Centipede (Richard Dreyfuss), Ladybug (Jane Leeves), Glowworm (Miriam Margoyles again), Spider (Susan Sarandon) and Earthworm (David Thewlis).

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While the insects in the book all have distinct personalities, the filmmakers have considerably amplified them here, turning Dahl’s all-British bestiary into a group as culturally diverse as a World War II-movie platoon. So while Callow’s Grasshopper talks like an Oxford don, Sarandon’s Spider is a Greta Garbo clone and Dreyfuss’ Centipede, who in the book says things like “I am such a shocking dreadful pest” is here as loud and brash as any Manhattan cabby.

Given that these insects are often at odds with one another, the result is an almost continual cacophony that sounds like the party next door you wish desperately would keep the noise down. All the cleverness, much of it emanating from illustrator Lane Smith, that has gone into visualizing these characters soon degenerates into an uncomfortable verbal bombardment. And adding a series of rather pro forma songs by Randy Newman (sample lyric: “We’re family, you and me”) does not help things.

To give this picture its due, once the peach and its crew break free and set off across the ocean in search of a magical New York, “the place where dreams come true,” “James” does offer some visual pleasures, as well as a return visit from Jack Skellington, a veteran of Selick’s first and considerably more successful stop-motion feature, “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

And “James’ ” core story of an underappreciated little boy transforming himself into a self-confident hero is also not without its charms. But in general the magic as well as the heart of Roald Dahl’s novel has remained stubbornly on the page, leaving us with this overly mechanical copy, as appetizing as a once-flavorful peach that’s been in cold storage for far too long.

* MPAA rating: PG, for some frightening images. Times guidelines: may be too intense for younger viewers.

‘James and the Giant Peach’

Simon Callow: Grasshopper

Richard Dreyfuss: Centipede

Jane Leeves: Ladybug

Joanna Lumley: Aunt Spiker

Miriam Margoyles: Aunt Sponge/Glowworm

Pete Postlethwaite: Old Man

Susan Sarandon: Spider

Paul Terry: James

David Thewlis: Earthworm

A Denise Di Novi production, in association with Allied Filmmakers, released by Walt Disney Pictures. Director Henry Selick. Producers Denise Di Novi, Tim Burton. Executive producer Jake Eberts. Screenplay Karey Kirkpatrick and Jonathan Roberts & Steve Bloom, based on the book by Roald Dahl. Cinematographers Pete Kozachik, Hiro Narita. Editor Stan Webb. Music Randy Newman. Production design Harley Jessup. Conceptual design Lane Smith. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.