Post by Harkovast on Dec 22, 2014 21:51:35 GMT
The irony of James and the Giant Peach is that it is incredibly boring, but the reason that it is incredibly boring is actually quite interesting.
Roald Dahl wrote a lot of great childrens books.
They were strange, often dark, and basically awesome.
Amongst these, James and the Giant Peach has always been a tremendously popular book.
Note the key word there....BOOK!
Somethings really should be kept in in their own context and genre to function.
Take Harkovast.
As much as I like to dream, a Harkovast movie would either not work, or be radically different to the comic.
A webcomic is ideal for a tremendously long story that includes lots of and lots of characters and back story.
In a movie, you have AT MOST 3 hours to get across all the information.
Even in big trilogies like Lord of the Rings, lots of information, subplots and side nonsense has to be cut out and the structure fundamentally changed to make it function as a film.
There are some stories that simply do not translate into another form.
James and the Giant Peach is very much one of these.
The movie doesn't work, to an almost remarkable extent.
It tries to be magical and whimsical but is just painfully, boringly pointless.
It doesn't really have an antagonist. There are some evil aunts, but they are killed off early on and only return right at the end in a scene that makes no sense in a feeble attempt to give the story some sort of closure. They certianly have no baring on the story throughout.
I say "story" because there really isn't one.
James (who is initially live action but turns into a HORRENDOUSLY ugly stop motion puppet with a huge bloated head) ends up in a giant peach. With him are six giant talking insects, floating over the Atlantic towards America. And that's it. On the way various weird an random things happen (most of which weren't in the book) that have no rhyme or reason to them.
A giant robot shark comes up out of the water, firing a harpoon and flying robot piranha's at them. Why? Who knows. The movie gives no clue. It just happens without explanation. An extended scene plays out. And then they escape and carry on and think no more about it.
In a book this kind of episodic story telling, where they spend a chapter doing something then move on to something else, works fine.
But in a movie it leads to a jumbled mess or boring , unrelated gibberish.
And in case the robot shark sounded exciting, it wasn't.
Any hope of excitement in the movie is invariably undone by a goofy, annoying sound track. The background music is incredibly inappropriate, leaving us with no sense that there is any really danger or tension at all.
The music only gets worse when the characters start singing.
I don't know who wrote the songs for this film but they need to be given an ankle bracelet that beeps anytime they start writing music, summoning a SWAT team to come and beat them over the head till they pack it in.
Just click this link and listen to the fucking funeral dirge these bastard bugs are spewing out.
Watch this video and share in my pain.
Urgh...
The voice acting is okay...aside from the main character, who sums up exactly why no body likes child actors in films.
The truly telling thing about this film is that the last time it was on TV, something occured to me.
I had never seen the ending.
It is so boring, so pointless, so lacking in narrative excitement or flow that I always just drifted away to something else.
I asked my eldest daughter if she had seen the ending, and she reported a similar experience.
I made an effort to then stay with the movie to the end...a move that gained me nothing except feeling qualified to write this review.
Since the film doesn't have any sense of progress or point, you don't feel you are missing anything or feel excitement for what might happen next, so there is no reason to keep watching (especially not with those God awful songs going on!)
This movie takes an exciting, lively, childhood classic and turns it into a dull, pointless, irritating, ugly waste of film.
Is there ANYTHING good in this film?
It has Pete Postlethwaite in it.
Other then that? Total shit.
Roald Dahl wrote a lot of great childrens books.
They were strange, often dark, and basically awesome.
Amongst these, James and the Giant Peach has always been a tremendously popular book.
Note the key word there....BOOK!
Somethings really should be kept in in their own context and genre to function.
Take Harkovast.
As much as I like to dream, a Harkovast movie would either not work, or be radically different to the comic.
A webcomic is ideal for a tremendously long story that includes lots of and lots of characters and back story.
In a movie, you have AT MOST 3 hours to get across all the information.
Even in big trilogies like Lord of the Rings, lots of information, subplots and side nonsense has to be cut out and the structure fundamentally changed to make it function as a film.
There are some stories that simply do not translate into another form.
James and the Giant Peach is very much one of these.
The movie doesn't work, to an almost remarkable extent.
It tries to be magical and whimsical but is just painfully, boringly pointless.
It doesn't really have an antagonist. There are some evil aunts, but they are killed off early on and only return right at the end in a scene that makes no sense in a feeble attempt to give the story some sort of closure. They certianly have no baring on the story throughout.
I say "story" because there really isn't one.
James (who is initially live action but turns into a HORRENDOUSLY ugly stop motion puppet with a huge bloated head) ends up in a giant peach. With him are six giant talking insects, floating over the Atlantic towards America. And that's it. On the way various weird an random things happen (most of which weren't in the book) that have no rhyme or reason to them.
A giant robot shark comes up out of the water, firing a harpoon and flying robot piranha's at them. Why? Who knows. The movie gives no clue. It just happens without explanation. An extended scene plays out. And then they escape and carry on and think no more about it.
In a book this kind of episodic story telling, where they spend a chapter doing something then move on to something else, works fine.
But in a movie it leads to a jumbled mess or boring , unrelated gibberish.
And in case the robot shark sounded exciting, it wasn't.
Any hope of excitement in the movie is invariably undone by a goofy, annoying sound track. The background music is incredibly inappropriate, leaving us with no sense that there is any really danger or tension at all.
The music only gets worse when the characters start singing.
I don't know who wrote the songs for this film but they need to be given an ankle bracelet that beeps anytime they start writing music, summoning a SWAT team to come and beat them over the head till they pack it in.
Just click this link and listen to the fucking funeral dirge these bastard bugs are spewing out.
Watch this video and share in my pain.
Urgh...
The voice acting is okay...aside from the main character, who sums up exactly why no body likes child actors in films.
The truly telling thing about this film is that the last time it was on TV, something occured to me.
I had never seen the ending.
It is so boring, so pointless, so lacking in narrative excitement or flow that I always just drifted away to something else.
I asked my eldest daughter if she had seen the ending, and she reported a similar experience.
I made an effort to then stay with the movie to the end...a move that gained me nothing except feeling qualified to write this review.
Since the film doesn't have any sense of progress or point, you don't feel you are missing anything or feel excitement for what might happen next, so there is no reason to keep watching (especially not with those God awful songs going on!)
This movie takes an exciting, lively, childhood classic and turns it into a dull, pointless, irritating, ugly waste of film.
Is there ANYTHING good in this film?
It has Pete Postlethwaite in it.
Other then that? Total shit.