Children's Adventure: A young boy takes a ride toward New York with some insect friends on a giant peach .
PLOT:
A magical musical fairy tale concerning a little boy, James Henry Trotter (PAUL TERRY), who finds himself living with his two aunts, Spiker and Sponge, after the death of his parents. Life with his aunts is hard and he dreams of a better place, specifically New York City, a "dream like" place his parents had talked about. His dream comes true when a stranger appears with a bagful of magic which among others things, changes insects (a Grasshopper, Centipede, Lady Bug, Spider, Earthworm and Glow Worm) into real life characters and causes an ordinary peach to grow to immense proportions. It's upon this peach that James and his new insect friends travel and make their way toward his "dream land."
WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT?
Yes. If they liked the book, animated features, or the look and feel of "Nightmare Before Christmas" they'll be drawn to this one.
WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: PG
For some frightening images.
CAST AS ROLE MODELS:
PAUL TERRY is the only "human" cast member with a large part and he plays a naive, but ready to face the world, little boy.
The rest of the cast consists of animated insects that probably won't be seen by kids as role models
(The degree to which these scenes may be scary to your kids depends on your kids. We rated them as moderately scary, but you'll have to decide how your children will react to them).
A storm suddenly approaches and a menacing rhino comes out of the sky and threatens (and later, we're told, kills) James' parents.
James is told that the Rhino might come back after him.
A mysterious man (with a bag full of magic) blinks his eye and it turns milky grey. When he blinks again, it's normal.
The first time James enters the giant peach, it's dark and shadowy inside and several strange looking creatures are moving about (they turn out to be the non-menacing insects).
While floating in the ocean atop their huge peach, a menacing mechanical shark approaches and attempts to capture and then consume all of them, nearly eating Mr. Centipede with it's spinning, grinding teeth.
James dreams that he's a caterpillar and that his aunts spray a pesticide cloud which comes nearer and nearer to him.
A rather lengthy underwater sequence begins with a view of an eerie looking double masthead on a sunken ship. Then the Catepillar is surprised by a skeleton crew (literally) of a sunken battle ship, where more and more scary looking skeletons come after him and the other characters.
The rhino storm appears again and scares James and the insects. There are more shots of the glowing-eyed Rhino with lightning bolts coming from it.
The scenes of the aunts after they've come out of the water and they're makeup has run down their faces may be scary looking to younger kids.
Some of the violence is slapstick as the aunts try to kill a spider and end up falling down the stairs, and then one hits the other in the face with a fly swatter as she misses the spider.
One aunt tells the other to "beat James," but the other complains that it's too early and so he's spared.
A starving Mr. Grasshopper and Mr. Centipede fight over a small piece of food and continue fighting after it has fallen from the peach.
Mr. Grasshopper kicks Mr. Centipede in the head (after he learns Mr. Centipede has been lying).
Skeletons on a pirate ship put Mr. Centipede on the rack and stretch him out.
One of the aunts comes after James with an ax and barely misses him with it as the ax imbeds into a car.
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