Lonely orphan James (Paul Terry) is sent to live with his two wicked relative Aunt Spiker (Joanna Lumley) and Aunt Sponge (Miriam Margolyes) and quickly longs to get himself out of their vile clutches. After meeting a mysterious man who gives bag of magical glowing crocodile tongues and tells him, “marvelous things,” are going to happen, the young boy has a mishap at the base of an old peach tree.

Next thing he knows the tree springs to laugh sprouting the largest peach he’s ever seen. Climbing inside he meets a group of kindly insects; Grasshopper (voiced by Simon Callow), Centipede (voiced by Richard Dreyfuss), Ladybug (voiced by Jane Leeves), Miss Spider (voiced by Susan Sarandon) and The Glowworm (voiced by Margolyes); and soon embarks on a glorious adventure across the Ocean heading for New York City.

CRITIQUE

James and the Giant Peach was my favorite book, even more so than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, written by the great Roald Dahl that I read as a youngster. There was something about James and his story I just thrilled to, and even today this particular work by this legendary author is one I’ll sometimes turn to from time to time when the mood strikes me.

I feel much the same way about director Henry Selick and producer Tim Burton’s delightful stop-motion version of Dahl’s timeless tale. While The Nightmare Before Christmas gets the annual 3D return to the theatres, their 1996 follow-up is by far the better motion picture. The screenplay is richly literate and gloriously whimsical, the vocal work is superb and the animation is extraordinary. It is a movie I could watch over and over with no problem at all, their take on James and the Giant Peach a delightfully musical frolic that’s nearly as classic as the material it’s based upon.

THE VIDEO

James and the Giant Peach is presented in 1.66:1/1080p widescreen. Another Disney homerun as far as visuals are concerned, this is a strong transfer rich in color, texture and detail. You can tell that a lot of care has gone into this release and I’m just so happy it’s gotten the type of high definition presentation it so richly deserved. Some might find it a bit too dark (especially the live-action bookends), and others will (rightfully) criticize the fact there are some notable scratches and blemishes that haven’t been cleaned up like they should have been.

Overall, I didn’t have issues with this transfer mainly because it felt and looked to me just like it did when I first experienced the picture back in theatres. Yes, the scratches and blemishes should have been fixed (that’s kind of inexcusable), but as far as color levels are concerned I personally think this looks extremely close to what Selick probably intended. The movie felt and looked like film, and as an improvement over the previously released standard definition DVDs this one is heads and shoulders above them all.

THE AUDIO

Available audio tracks include English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and French 5.1 Dolby Digital with optional English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles. This is where this Blu-ray gets things just about perfect, the audio magicians at Disney doing an exemplary job.

THE EXTRAS

There are almost no new extras here, the majority of them ported directly over from previous DVD editions.

The only new, Blu-ray exclusive feature is the interactive game Spike the Aunts, a tedious extra I quickly grew tired of.

Other than that, the behind-the-scenes featurette, the “Good News” music video and the original theatrical trailer are all carryovers from those past releases.

The set also comes with a standard definition DVD of the film and the Blu-ray is BDisney-Live enabled.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I adore James and the Giant Peach, think it is the best thing Henry Selick has ever done as a director. But while I personally think the transfer for this Blu-ray is wonderful (scratches and imperfections aside), some will not feel the same. Additionally, the lack of any new (or decent, for that matter) special features makes upgrading kind of a waste of time. Granted, if you don’t already own this film than by golly make sure and pick this Blu-ray up but as far as everyone else is concerned, just make sure you rent it first before deciding to spend the money on an upgrade.