Coraline is a fantastically creepy movie that I absolutely loved.
The basic plot: Coraline is a girl who lives in a brand new (at least to her) house. She is ignored by her parents and the situation is quite sad. While she is exploring this new house she comes across this strangely small door. When she goes through the door she steps into an alternate, but better, version of her family. But not everything is as perfect as it seems. (Oooh, mystery!)
I wanted to see this movie in the theater, but I never got a chance. Excuse, excuses I know. I finally watched this the other night and WOW! is it creepy! Very good and quite entertaining, but creepy. I mean, anyone who has button for eyes is creepy in my book. I thought the plot was very creative and I think the pacing was just right. A lot of times with family/ kids type movies like this I find them to be really, really long (case in point: Finding Nemo. After a while I was just like, “Can we find the damn fish already and let me go home? Jeepers!”).
I think the cast was perfectly chosen. The only other time I have seen Terry Hatcher act was when I briefly watched Desperate Housewives (I don’t know what I was thinking either). Despite the utter absurdity of that show, she was pretty decent. I don’t blame her acting for the fact that her character was insanely annoying. She has one of the most wicked awesome voices for this type of character. That may sound like an exaggeration (for which I am widely known) but I am serious Internet. I don’t know off hand (while writing this–during my psychology class I might add, that right there is COMMITMENT) who could have been better for the role of the mother/other mother. And I love Dakota Fanning. And I think the father was that guy who plays the PC in those Mac commercials? I’d never seen him act (besides the commercials) in fact I’d never heard of him, but I liked his goofy voice well enough.
Overall I really enjoyed this movie and you should definitely see it when you have the chance.
November 9th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
I’m a huge fan of both the movie and the Neil Gaiman book that it’s based on. I think Henry Selick has nearly matched what he accomplished with The Nightmare Before Christmas. The animation is top notch, the story is a great mix of creepy and cool, and the voice acting is very good.
The film’s detractors complain about the weird pacing of the plot, but I don’t think it takes away from the quality of the film. The book is the same way. It might be different, but don’t see how it’s bad.