Movie Review - 'Coraline'

Coraline Featuring the voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, and John Hodgman Directed by Henry Selick Rated PG

There is a revitalization of 3-D in Hollywood. Whether or not that stretches out to the rest of the country remains to be seen. It has already been an interesting year for the resurgent technology; the horror movie My Bloody Valentine might be the best example of live action 3-D ever made, but during the Super Bowl, you could wear cheap glasses and watch the disastrous 3-D commercial for Monsters vs. Aliens. And now there’s Coraline , one of 21 3-D releases this year. What’s puzzling is that this film doesn’t need 3-D and stranger still, doesn’t even try to take advantage of it. Whereas Bloody Valentine is conscious of the fact that you’ve got glasses strapped to your head and therefore pushes the action out of the screen and in your direction, Coraline avoids such gimmicks, which is more authentic to the story, perhaps, but wastes a golden opportunity to explore the functionality of the form with stop-motion animation. Coraline is written and directed by Henry Selick , the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, which is often wrongly attributed to one of its producers, Tim Burton. Selick is known for his work with miniatures, and they're beyond excellent in this film. One thing he's not known for, though, is screenwriting, and Coraline could be crisper and more lively. For his subject, Selick has adapted a modern twist on Alice in Wonderland by Neil Gaiman (who wrote the book on which Stardust is based, as well) and brought it into his world of tiny puppets painstakingly positioned and manipulated as actors. Selick has gone one better, by seamlessly combining his stop-motion work with top notch computer animation. If I didn't know there was stop-motion animation, I probably wouldn't have picked up on it at all, outside of just a few sequences. But Selick has definitely imagined his own little world for Coraline, and that's what you should try to get lost in. Coraline (Dakota Fanning ) finds a door in her new home to a bizarro world where she likes her parents and there’s adventure at every turn, but she soon learns there’s a dark side to it. It’s a great opportunity to explore 3-D, but because Selick’s handiwork is so glorious on its own, the 3-D - or at least the implication of the 3-D - is a distraction. The film doesn’t benefit from it and neither does the viewer, who becomes more concerned with why the glasses are necessary and doesn’t follow the story. Perhaps the real irony here is that while this is being trumpeted as a 3-D movie, and that's the technological aspect that should be moving forward, the real fascination is with the stop-motion animation and the miniatures, which most of the rest of the world has forgotten.
Watch the Coraline trailer

Comments

[Lisa Vasile]

I have never written a comment about a movie before....But I truly need to notify parents that "Coraline" is NOT a Children's movie!
My children and I went to the theater last week as a treat for my 13 year old's birthday. Well, I drove to the wrong theater and the movie we were going to see wasn't playing at 'this' theater.
So...we reviewed all the movies playing and without my ability to look any of the movies up for content- I gave them choices of the only 2 PG movies playing; Jonas Brother's concert or Coraline. They concurred and decided to see Coraline.
In the first scene of the movie the audience is scared by the neighborhood cat and a little boy chasing Coraline on a motorized bike and scary mask. My 8 year old twins said "Wow, Mom that was scary". Little did I know that this 3D movie would only get a million times MORE scary!
The movie plays out to sucker an unhappy ignored child into a 'perfect' world, something I am sure most kids dream about on a daily basis when they are made to clean their room or wash dishes.
Not quickly enough does Coraline realize that she is being 'lured' into a world of no return. A world that there is no love. A world of lost children souls and a giant metal spider who would rather kill Coraline than have her escape back to her 'real' Mom and Dad.
Perhaps the movie is based on teaching children to love what they have? Perhaps it is trying to express the 'grass is not always greener' theme? That said; it is NOT for children under the age of 13 who do not have the ability to separate the movie from potential reality.
I can't say the movie was horrible. It was well done and the music, details, story, 3D effects etc were all great. Nontheless, I would rate the movie an "8" if it were a PG-13.
Granted our society is much more lenient than it was when we grew up. Granted we see and hear more than we ever did when we grew up. Granted there are some children who would be fine with imagining themselves being stuck in a world where she has to give up her eyes for button and offer her soul to a button eyed metal spider mom only to sacrifice her own parents to a world stuck in a freezing snow globe....however...I am thinking MOST children under the age of 13 would be scared watching this movie and MOST children will have recurrent thoughts as to whether this could occur or nightmares that play out this unnerving world.
By the marks left on my arms of my two 8 year olds, this movie should be rated PG-13.

[Jillian]

Thank you for posting about this movie being inappropriate for young audiences. You saved my 2 nieces & 2 sons from potential nightmares!

[Joel]

Lisa isn't kidding. I'm 24 and this was creepy.