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Coraline (2009)
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Movie Review by Zara 
February 6th, 2009
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This movie, much like last year's IGOR, doesn't know who its audience is. While focusing on subject matter that is supposed to be scary for small children, it actually surpasses that and is TOO freaky and strange for small children. This is NOT the latest and greatest NIGHTMARE BEFORE XMAS.
I'll admit, about a quarter of the way in, all the hope that I had for this movie started to drain through my fingers like sand. It takes a long time to get going and some of the stuff that they throw in in the meantime is more disturbing than enchanting. (The downstairs actresses and their semi-nude revue, for example.)
The people behind making the movie are banking on the popularity of XMAS, but people forget quickly and easily that that movie was not a box office success when it was released and instead found an audience with the goth/emo kids in later years and ended up being embraced by Disney after they initially shunned it. This movie is fantastical but has no heart, like the other movie. And while this movie might be combining 3D with stop-motion animation, it feels like they're doing it simply for the extra charge for those glasses, as there isn't a whole lot that is deep to the visuals. Most could have been kept plain stop-motion and I would have been just as interested.
When the movie finally picks up steam (and it really happens once the cat starts to talk, oddly enough), it is a feast for the eyes and capable of enrapturing those of us with eternal adolescence issues. But as far as my 8 year old was concerned, while she would deny it like a typical 8 year old, when I looked over at her during the movie, she appeared confused and bored.
And the story IS confusing. There is some charm to it, the unexplained kookiness. But it walks a VERY narrow line in doing so. So narrow that I venture to think that I might be one of a very small group that actually gets it.
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 | James
Feb 8, 2009 7:49 PM
also wrote a review of Coraline
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| I find nightmare before xmas not very children-oriented too. From your description, this movie looks like it must be close by weirdness. =) |
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