James and the Giant Peach: Special Edition

Director Henry Selick and producer Tim Burton followed The Nightmare Before Christmas with this 1996 adaptation of Roald Dahl's storybook fantasy of a plucky English orphan named James who escapes his nasty aunts via a giant peach that rolls into the ocean and carries him into a series of adventures on the way to New York City. The opening scenes of live actors on a set that looks like a warped fairy tale gone to seed segues into stop-motion animation once James (Paul Terry) crawls into the piece of fruit and befriends a lively group of talking (and singing) insects, including a wise-guy Brooklyn centipede (voiced by Richard Dreyfuss), a French black widow spider (Susan Sarandon), and a maternal ladybug (Jane Leeves). A dark undercurrent of nightmares and childhood fears (the accident that took the lives of James' parents is visualized as a giant rhinoceros that thunders out of the clouds) runs through the ensuing escapade, which takes the crew to the bottom of the sea (where they battle pirate skeletons on an underwater wreck), up into the skies, and finally to the spire of the Empire State Building. Backed by Randy Newman's original score and bouncy songs, James and the Giant Peach makes a handsome debut on Blu-ray with the new set-top interactive game “Spike the Aunts,” as well as a bonus DVD copy with the original behind-the-scenes featurette and Newman's music video for “Good News.” Although a bit scary for very young viewers, this is a fine interpretation of Dahl's classic story. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)