Movie Review of Coraline Directed by Henry Selick

"CORALINE MOVIE REVIEW"

Directed by: Henry Selick
Running time: 100 minutes
Release date: February 6, 2009
Genre: 3-D Animation, Family, Fantasy and Adaptation
Distributor: Focus Features
MPAA Rating: PG

Coraline is a wondrous and exciting children's tale shown in 3D. Wondrous is only to be expected from the combination of
film director Harry Selick (of The Nightmare Before Christmas) with Neil Gaiman's book by the same title.

Eleven year old Coraline Jones (voice of Dakota Fanning) and her parents move from Michigan to Oregon. As with most children who have to relocate, Coraline finds that she will have to leave her comfortable surroundings and get acquainted with the new environment. Her parents (voices of Teri Hatcher & John Hodgman) are preoccupied by their work, which is contrary to the very active Coraline's demeanor. It is hard for Coralineto adapt to the new rural community, and she is quite lonely until she meets an annoying little local boy her age named Wybie Lovat (voice of Baily Jr.). This opens a new world of excitement for little Coraline, as she meets other people such as a pair of weird British actresses Miss Spink and Forcible (Jennifer Saunders & Dawn French), and an extremely eccentric Russian Mr. Bobinsky (voice of Ian McShane). This is strange to her and it bores her to the point where she allows her imagination to run wild.

Coraline's new huge house is the perfect place for her thoughts to go astray. She wanders through the house and finds a secret door and discovers an alternative version of her life. It is a magical parallel world behind this door in the wall where, in three dimensional format, she finds the creepiest part of a set of mirrored parents known as her "other mother" and "other father" - people who look like her real parents, but have large shiny black button eyes and very pale skin - and have a fixation on keeping her on their side of the door. They charm her with an abundance of attention and great meals, things she was denied by her real parents.

This marvelous film displays creepy and delightful images on screen that fascinated me. The main character, other characters, setting and plot provided an escapist happy meal of cinematography. It rattles the young and not so young viewer's values and assumptions at the same time. There are all the terrifying ingredients: dark of night, raging storms and unexpected presence of the unknown. It all comes to play in various scenes of mystical animation as she tries to get back to her real parents and the world she now knows is right for her.
Of course, in the end, this excellent movie will aim to provide universal ideals and possibilities.

Coraline is a great family film. However, parental guidance is required because of the thematic images, scary images and suggestive humor.

FILM RATING (A)