Great story, amazing visuals

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2009)

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) feels that she isn't living the happy family life she should be with her parents (Teri Hatcher & John Hodgman). The family has just moved to a new area against Coralines wishes, the parents are all caught up in their work and there's not much to do for Coraline in the new, alien and secluded surroundings she's put in. She feels unappreciated by her parents – and she's more than delighted when she finds a secret door inside the house which leads to a different kind of reality where all her wishes seem to come true... Then the buttons come into the picture and everything goes haywire - you'll understand when you watch the film.
Coraline's (2009) a stop-motion animation (with some CGI-thrown into the mix) and it looks amazing. The characters and the sets are well designed and brought to life with a great attention to detail. The characters are well animated and the voice work for each and every one of them is just right. Especially Dakota Fanning as the titular Coraline deserves extra praise – if she hadn't done a great job the whole film would have fallen flat along with her performance. Luckily for the film she's great in the role. What I also really liked about the characters was that even though how bizarre or "over the top" they were, or regardless how few minutes of screen time for some of them was given – they all seemed to have something more than just the first and the most obvious "layer" in them, something going on "behind the scenes". It brought that much more life into them and into the story itself.
The film's look is very much alike with the one of The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) – and it's no wonder, the films share the same director: Henry Selick. The design is very Gothic- and dream-like and looks spooky and amazing at the same time. Along with some creepy design, the story isn't all kid-friendly either. There's nothing scary in it but in some of the scenes the tension does build up a bit.
The storytelling get's into motion a bit too slowly and it get's overwhelmed at first by the amazing visual look. But still, Coraline (2009) has a great story to tell and the whole film is a fine example of a "family movie" anyone can enjoy. 3/4