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Coraline (2009)
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Movie Review by matt
February 25th, 2009
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A Dark Fairytale
This past weekend I decided to indulge in my inner child and check out the 3d version of "Coraline", a short story originally written by Neil Gaiman and recently adapted and directed by Selick. Though you might not be familiar with the name Selick you will certainly know of his previous work which mainly employs the use of stop-motion animation. He is the man behind "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (no, Tim Burton wasn't the director contrary to popular belief) and that was all I needed to know to hand over my 13 bucks (it was a few extra dollars for the 3-d aspect).
"Coraline" follows the blue-haired young girl (voice of Dakota Fanning) as she transitions into her new home, a 150 year old mansion that sits seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say, Coraline has a lot of time to explore her new surroundings, and the fact that her parents are both busy writers and have no time to provide Coraline a lick of attention furthers this notion. This exploration leads Coraline to discover a small door hidden behind a patch of wallpaper only when opened, there's nothing to greet her save for a cold brick wall. But when the sun goes down and people head to bed, that brick wall that seemed so obstinate becomes a pathway into another world. This world is the same as Coraline's, only everything is so much warmer, her "other" parents are so much nicer, and everything seems to be made for her. The only unsettling facet about this world is that where people's eyes should be, instead, sits only black button's sewn into their sockets.
It was that fact that clued me into the notion that "Coraline" was going to have some creepy elements to it and I can say that I wasn't wrong. The beginning scene exemplifies this as the movie opens with a pair of skeletal needle-like hands working to reassemble a puppet. The whole process is rather brutal as these spidery, sharp, cruel vestiges take an old puppet, remove the clothes, the eyes, then pulls apart the string holding this empty husk together to dump out its innards. The hands then methodically and elegantly get new stuffing and new clothes and sew fresh buttons onto its blank face. All the while the hands dance to the unsettling hum of a female voice filling our ears.
What made this movie great in my opinion is the use of stop-motion
animation rather than going with CGI. There are times when the animation is so smooth that you are almost fooled into thinking that it is CGI, but the minute details keep you clued in to the fact that this was a painstaking process that a lot of effort, determination, and care went into. This personally gave me more respect for the movie as a whole, and gave the movie a very unique feel to it not seen in many present day kids' movies.
Another thing that I liked about the movie is that it was rather unsettling in a psychological way. There is something underneath the surface throughout most of the movie that you can't quite put your finger on, but you know that it is something twisted. This may scare children a bit, I saw some parents and their child leaving early and the look on his face told me he was going to have nightmares tonight. However it is also appealing to adults because it isn't as childish to seem silly and it isn't as mature as to go over the heads of children. The content of this movie has achieved a very delicate balance which I would imagine is hard to obtain for a filmmaker.
The voice acting was also very good, Dakota Fanning gave character to an otherwise lifeless puppet, and Teri Hatcher also did the voice of the mother and the "other" mother which were excellent. The only gripe I might have about this movie is that the 3d wasn't entirely necessary. The crew employed the use of "stereoscopic 3d" which instead of having "pop-out-at-you" gimmicky 3d, the entire movie seemed to have a depth to it as if you were watching it enfold inside of a shoebox, though the movie didn't rely on this technique. This could also be seen a good thing I suppose because the movie can stand on its own without 3d, it is visually engrossing and interesting enough to be thoroughly enjoyed as a 2-d movie. I suppose I am only griping about it because it tacked on another two or three dollars to an already overpriced ticket.
Overall, if you are a fan of "The Nightmare Before Christmas", or if you simply just want something to do one night I would say this is a movie that pays off to see in theaters. The 3d effect won't be able to be as enjoyed as much from your couch and the visuals are so appealing that you will want to watch it on a massive screen, not a 4x4 inch window on WATCHFREEMOVIES.com. To put it simply, if this was a spaghetti dinner, and if I had a possible five meatballs to put on my dish, I would probably cut one into fourths, then put four meatballs, and that quarter onto my plate. Giving me a total of 4 ¼ meatballs (stars).
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