JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH

Dahl's wicked sense of humor is blunted by Disneyfication while his anxiety about female sexuality (the plot: a boy escapes his evil stepmothers by — ahem — climbing into a hole is a giant peach) is actually intensified by some bizarrely chosen visuals. The creepiness of this premise and of other elements is never balanced by anything ambiguously upbeat, and so the tone of the film is relentlessly anxious.

— Vance Lehmkuhl

(AMC Wayne; AMC Orleans; Northeast 4; UA Cheltenham; UA Riverview; UA Ardmore; UA Chestnut Hill)