James and the Giant Peach is a stop-motion animation musical based on a story by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG). Directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monkeybone), the film starts out as a live action film with James (Paul Terry) and his parents having a great life, with plans to move from England to New York City. Before they can move James' parents are eaten by a rhino (yeah, I laughed too), anyway, as you may have guessed, James is left with family members that hate him and abuse him. In this case it is his Aunt Spiker (Joanna Lumley) and Aunt Sponge (Miriam Margolyes).<br /><br />Alone and depressed, James draws his dreams on a paper and makes a hot air balloon with it and a candle. James goes outside and is confronted by a mysterious old man who gives James back his bag, however, it now contains magical crocodile tongues. On his way back up to the house James stumbles and the crocodile tongues go everywhere and dig their way into the ground near a dead tree. A peach then begins to grow on the tree. Eventually James crawls into an opening in the peach. At this point the film goes into animation mode. Inside the peach James meets several friendly bugs who help him on his adventure to New York City.<br /><br />Although the story did not hold my interest, there were a few great scenes. There is a scene with a metal steam operated shark that attacks James and his friends. There is also a great underwater scene where Jack Skellington makes a cameo appearance as a pirate. Although I did not really enjoy the film, I feel that children would enjoy it. However, use caution because there are a few scenes that may be too scary for young children.