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James and the Giant Peach: Special Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (3rd September 2010). |
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The Film
 After the successful collaboration with Tim Burton on "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) Henry Selick began work on the beloved Roald Dahl book "James and the Giant Peach" into a stop-motion film. The imaginative storytelling of Dahl merged with Burton's stylistic sensibility and Selick's brilliant animation make for a incredible combination, but how would Burton's slightly dark tones work with what is essentially a children's tale? Not as well as you'd like, for the most part the film is partly enjoyable, however is a flawed picture that has much room for improvement. While the film is much less dark than their former effort "The Nightmare Before Christmas," the film is only loosely based on the book and delves into a slightly mean-spirited tone and isn't even fully animated, incorporating live-action elements that really take you out of the film (especially the parts when James (Paul Terry) breaks out into song... ugh)... in many ways it feels like a half-hearted effort, in fact Selick himself said that he idea to mix live-action and stop-motion and was done mostly as a cost-cutting measure... I'm of the mind if you can't do it entirely the way its originally envisioned (as a completely stop-motion feature) then it probably shouldn't be made, or be shopped around to another studio to provide the full financing necessary. "James and the Giant Peach" tells the story of James (Paul Terry) who once had loving parents, is now an orphan when his parents died in a terrible accident involving a rhinoceros and now lives with his two horrible Aunts, Aunt Spiker (Joanna Lumley) and Aunt Sponge (Miriam Margolyes). James, is subjected to doing chores all day, treated like dirt and generally mistreated. One day James saves the life of a spider from being killed by his Aunts, and encounters an Old man (Pete Postlethwaite) who gives him magic crocodile tongues. Promising that they'll take him to a place he's been dreaming of, a place were there is no misery... New York City! Accidentally dropping them outside his Aunt's home, a giant peach forms in the garden. To escape the drudgery of living with his Aunts, James ventures inside the peach and encounters the spider he saved, Miss Spider (Susan Sarandon) and a collection of zany characters including Grasshopper (Simon Callow), Centipede (Richard Dreyfuss), Ladybug (Jane Leeves) and Earthworm (David Thewlis) who help him reach New York in a fantastical adventure. Despite this, the parts of the film which are animated are beautiful, much like "Nightmare" the characters feel like they have life behind their eyes, despite being nothing but pliable objects. Selick's character designs offers up an oddball look that's suited to the almost randomness of the story. The fluidity of the animation has improved since "Nightmare" and it's nice to see the filmmakers put their own unique touches to the characters and the world they inhabit (there's also a cool Jack Skellington cameo in there as well!). What's lacking unfortunately is a lack of some character complexity, the characters aren't exactly partly-formed it's that that they feel 2-dimensional and each features their own cliché, The Spider is a mysterious French woman, the Grasshopper is the posh British one, the Lady Bug is very much the "lady," the Earthworm is a working class Joe and the Centipede is your usual tough talking Brooklynite. There are some great moments scattered through this film, the peach rolling through the village to freedom and into the ocean is a lot of fun, admittedly even with the live action scenes cut in. Once we're in the ocean the film is fully animated (until James makes it to New York that is, which transitions back to live action) and James' imagination begins to form and leads to the mechanical shark sequence, which is another favorite, providing some tension and danger in the early stages of james' journey. The nightmare sequence offers up a unique style to it as James is a grub worm trying to get away, it's something a little different and much more surreal than the stop-motion but it doesn't last very long. I would have liked a more elaborately designed nightmare sequence but I suppose the time consuming nature of the production it would have been prohibitive considering a little bit later James encounters a true nightmare when he faces a storm cloud that resembles a angry rhino. The fantastical elements work really well, it's a nice change to the mean-spirit start of the film with James' two Aunts and is deliberately designed to be so, after all we never miss the Aunts once James is on his adventure. What really bugs me about this film though, what really gets on my nerves, if you will, are the sing-song moments. Not being a fan of spontaneous singing in any type of film, but when done right it can work, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" had many moments that worked and many songs that were just a delight, while "Nightmare" had Danny Elfman "James and the Giant Peach" has Randy Newman... Elfman is surely missed here as the score and the songs to "James" don't really do it any justice, Newman's style is very show-tuney, which I'm not a fan of and if I had to be honest certainly taints my opinion of the music. "James and the Giant Peach" certainly has its moments (the animated portions), it didn't really intrigue me as much as "Nightmare" did. It feels flawed from the outset, the live action really takes you out of the film and the music didn't capture me either. If you love the film then I doubt my review will sway you, but if you're new to it, trust me when I say this, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a much better film and "James and the Giant Peach" feels like a wasted opportunity.
Video
Presented in a 1.66:1 widescreen ratio mastered in HD 1080p 24/fps and uses AVC MPEG-4 compression codec. To say the image is problematic is an understatement, this image is choppy and inconsistent. Disney has a very good track record with catalogue titles on Blu-ray, so it was a surprise to see one that was so up and down. I'm not sure what the problem is, perhaps poor source materials? I'll break down the image review into two parts, the live action and animated portions. The live action scenes look terrible, the picture lacks detail, there's an incredible amount of noise, some of it gain (good) and some if noise (bad), the live action scenes seems to have been shot with a soft focus, which doesn't do any justice in HD. The colors are little flat and the overall image seems quite dark, with some detail lost amid the blacks. There's also some artifacts, specks and flickering that pop up which are distracting. The animated segments fare a lot better, though still problematic in their own way. The animated segments look brighter and more colorful, however there are scenes which, in previous home video releases, were darker that are now lighter. Not sure what's happened here with this transfer but it just seems off to me. The detail is much more improved in these scenes, texture and depth look good and there are less artifacts, specks and flicker that occur within these scenes. There's still a healthy amount of grain that provides added weight to the animated scenes. At the end of the day a mixed bag is probably the best way to describe this image.
Audio
Three audio tracks are featured in this disc, in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mixed at 48kHz/24-bit as well as French Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround tracks. For the purpose of this review I chose to view the film with its DTS-HD audio. This track is a huge improvement over the standard 5.1 tracks which viewers have previously been accustomed to on DVD. When compare the audio has added depth and feel much broader. The dialogue is clear and distortion free, surrounds are occasionally active during action scenes and with the film's score, there were a few quiet patches here and there. Direction effects are well rendered throughout the sound space and the bas channel comes into play with a decent amount of oomph. In saying all that, the track is perfectly serviceable but won't break any windows when cranked up. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired, French and Spanish.
Extras
Disney has released this film on Blu-ray as a "Special Edition" which doesn't really deserve the moniker. Only a small scattering of supplements are featured, a new interactive game is included, an all-to-brief featurette, a music video, a series of still galleries, the theatrical trailer and a collection of bonus trailers, there's also a second disc which is a DVD with only a few of the same extras. Below is a closer look at these supplements. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY The only new extra on this release is the "Spike the Aunts" interactive game where you use your remote to torment the Aunts, it's a game that takes a few minutes to get bored of. There's a fairly standard EPK "Production" featurette that runs a scant 4 minutes 34 seconds. It's a rudimentary promotional clip that was used to sell the film to audiences during the original release. It's brief and never delves into the details of the production. An all-new documentary covering the production process would have been a welcomed addition, but just as the film itself is a wasted opportunity so are the supplements on this disc. "Good News" is a music video by Randy Newman that runs for 2 minutes 29 seconds. If you like Newman then this is for you, if not then skip it. Next up are a series of still frame galleries, I'm baffled about the handling of these extras, Disney appear to have ported over the image and placed them in a huge border making the images themselves look tiny by comparison and can hardly be viewed normally, I have a 55 inch TV and on that display these image still look tiny. Sadly this extra feels rushed to Blu-ray, included are: - "Concept Art" features 9 images. - "Puppets" features 9 images. - "Behind-the-Scenes" features 36 images. - "Live Action" features 18 images. The disc also includes the film's original theatrical trailer that runs for 1 minute 22 seconds. Rounding out the extras package are a collection of bonus trailers for: - "Disney Blu-ray" spot which runs for 1 minute 4 seconds. - "Tangled" runs for 29 seconds. - "Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue" runs for 1 minute 32 seconds. - "Anti-smoking" PSA runs for 19 seconds. - "Beauty and the Beast" runs for 1 minute 8 seconds. - "Disney Movie Rewards" spot runs for 19 seconds. - "Genuine Disney" spot runs for 1 minute 7 seconds. - "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" runs for 1 minute 22 seconds. - "Oceans" runs for 1 minute 22 seconds. - "Alice in Wonderland" runs for 49 seconds. - "A Christmas Carol" runs for 1 minute 16 seconds. - "The Lion King" runs for 1 minute 23 seconds. - "Disney Parks" spot runs for 31 seconds. DISC TWO: DVD This is a standard DVD version of the film, the extras on this disc are the same "Production" featurette, music video and theatrical trailer that are also on the Blu-ray. Additionally there are also bonus trailers that appear on this disc for: - "The Nightmare Before Christmas" runs for 1 minute 25 seconds. - "Disney Blu-ray" spot which runs for 1 minute 4 seconds. - "Tangled" runs for 29 seconds. - "Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue" runs for 1 minute 32 seconds. - "Beauty and the Beast" runs for 1 minute 8 seconds. - "Anti-Smoking" PSA runs for 18 seconds. - "Disney Movie Rewards" spot runs for 19 seconds. - "Genuine Disney" spot runs for 18 seconds. - "The Black Cauldron" runs for 1 minute 5 seconds. - "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" runs for 1 minute 22 seconds. - "Oceans" runs for 1 minute 22 seconds. - "Fantasia/Fantasia 2000" runs for 1 minute 17 seconds. - "A Christmas Carol" runs for 1 minute 16 seconds. - "Alice in Wonderland" runs for 49 seconds. - "D23" spot runs for 34 seconds.
Packaging
This 2-disc set is packaged in a Blu-ray case housed in a cardboard slip-case.
Overall
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