Original, beautiful, funny...and remarkable 3D

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2009)

First, this film is excellent with or without the 3D. It is beautifully written and designed, brilliantly directed by Henry Selick, the characters are totally engaging, the tone is perfect animated-suburban-teen-goth with a sardonic edge, and the whole movie feels fresh and funny and dark and satisfying.
Visually, it is stunning...and in 3D it is even more stunning. The circus mice alone (a relatively minor element, but quite unforgettable) make it worth seeing in 3D, and the decidedly trippy garden in the parallel world (eat your heart out, Alice In Wonderland) made a friend of ours long for the days of 1990s rave culture!
One word of warning: it is fairly scary by children's movies standards, but a lot depends on the child, and although at times it seems to echo (in a fairly gentle way) Japanese horror movies of late, there is probably nothing more disturbing here than Cruella de Vil in Disney's original animated 101 Dalmatians.
Even the score feels fresh, much of it performed by the Hungarian Radio Orchestra (if I remember correctly from the credits) but with contributions, too, from Bruno Coulais and They Might Be Giants (who made one of the best children's CDs, No!).
See Coraline and make every effort to see it in 3D. And if you do, sit through the entire closing credits, for there is a nice little kicker right at the end.