“Coraline” is a shade of peach: Coraline is also a peachy movie. (Didn’t you read the title of this pos?) That being said it should be fairly obvious why I chose Peachy as today’s post.-
I came to see Coraline with two minds: part of me thought it looked like a fun, somewhat over-the-top animated movie that was written from a novel by Neil Gaiman (who wrote the novel for Stardust--which I enjoyed thoroughly) and was made by a lot of the same people who did The Nightmare Before Christmas (which I also thoroughly enjoyed--but didn‘t review.) Still, the movie was being done in a 3D format (and I had many bad memories of old-fashioned 3D movies where you had to were cheap, cardboard glasses with one red and one blue lens--and even then the effect was pretty crappy.) My glasses aren’t well suited for putting a second pair on with them so I wasn’t sure how well I was going to even be able to SEE this movie. Still, we had passes from Costco and there wasn’t a lot else I really wanted to see so we went…
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Before I say anything about the movie let me say this--the 3D ROCKS! The 3D FX are spectacularly done without being tacky or overdone. (There are no hands/arrows/rockets/spiders shooting out of the screen. The images simply lift off the screen that simply gives this movie a subtly richer texture. Sadly, Coraline won’t be shown in 3D much longer (I think it wraps up this week.) so I’d go check it out sooner rather than later.
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The movie is the story of young Coraline Jones (voiced by world-weary Dakota Fanning) who moves to a new home (a Victorian mansion that has been broken up into apartments). Her parents (voiced by Terry Hatcher and John Hodgman) have no time for her (and not much in the way of decemt food either!) and the rest of the adults around her are frankly--odd… Corlaine finds her way into another world where her “Other” Mother has plenty of time to make delicious dinners and always has time to play. The “other” home is filled with wonder but there’s something weird there too--everyone has button eyes (like a rag doll!) What follows is a cautionary tale of “be careful what you wish for because you just might get it!” as Coraline find out the truth about her “Other Mother” and what this world really is like with the help of a talking cat (Keith David)…
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The movie has a decidedly “Goth” sensibility: the colors are muted and everything is frankly stylized. There is some slightly horrific elements but nothing outright horrible here: still, I wouldn’t want to take a child under the age of eight (or older if they have delicate sensibilities). I found it generally charming although there were some pacing problems (slow at first, rushed near the end) but all in all I found it quite enjoyable--and the 3D effects really add to the atmosphere. Coraline isn’t for everyone but fans of movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas will likely enjoy this as well.
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FINAL GRADE B+
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