JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH (1996) **1/2 I don't believe that injecting these songs in any way improves on Roald Dahl's original. The stop-motion animation is great, though. The animated characters are very cool-looking, this thing has producer Tim Burton's fingerprints all over it. I don't know if it would be fun to direct for him, but I imagine it would be an education. Dahl's fantastical story line bends surrealism to its own will, which may be kind of cheating but definitely isn't easy. It becomes a balancing act, with neither rationality nor subconsciousness willing to back off, the result being that one of them almost definitely has to fall off. An element of Dahl's genius is that he didn't let them. It has to be a judgment call in any event, and the good news is that at least there's always something worth looking at. Susan Sarandon's sleazy Slav-impression in the service of an animated spider may enthuse the more degenerate of her Rocky Horror -era fans, and those even worse off may wallow in the joy of seeing Joanna Lumley depicted as so uncommonly common. It's all in good fun, even the snapping submarine rockets.
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