Coraline

Rating: 9/10 (8 February 2009)

Coraline is a stop motion and three dimensional animated film based upon the book of the same name by Neil Gaiman. The story focuses on a young girl named Coraline, who has just moved into a dark and dreary town with her two parents, who pay little to no attention to her at all. When Coraline goes to sleep she dreams of an alternate version of her new home and a much warmer and kindler family. Coraline wishes she could live in this dream world permanently, but as she soon discovers it really is not as it seems and there is actually a lot of danger lurking in this seemingly happy and carefree world, Coraline must eventually save herself and save the day and all of this is done in fantastic animation complete with 3D glasses the theatre gives you to view the movie in. There has been a lot of animated films as of late and for the most part they do not really appeal to me and for the most part I do not end up seeing them. I also do not care much for 3D animation all that much. I find it feels too computerized and I miss the days of hand drawn animation. Even the stop motion animation used in Coraline and the director's other film The Nightmare Before Christmas, I much prefer to 3D animation. It just looks a lot more interesting and I do not know if this is just coincidence, or not, but the stop motion films seem to have better stories and more originality than I find the 3D ones have. I also like the new computer type animation where the director films live scenes and paints over them with a computer program as seen in films like Waking Life. Back to Coraline now. The film with it's visuals, animation and the 3D glasses that accompanied the film made it a visual feast and it was a complete pleasure to look at and I really enjoyed that aspect of the film. Coraline's story was full of dark and more grim story telling, but I have always had a fascination with that kind of material, so it pleased me to no end. I also found the film to be fascinating, it moved along quite well and I wouldn't normally comment on something like this, but I found the voice actors for the film were really very well suited to the characters they were playing. Coraline is a film for anyone who likes the unknown, or mysteries, or for fans of 3D, or just animation in general I think it would be hard for anyone to not appreciate something of this film's top notch animation and the wonderful storytelling that went with it. This film has tons of excitement, great visuals and is all and all a very entertaining night out at the movies, which is often needed in the dark and grim months of the winter, much of like where Coraline lives. This film is highly recommended.