Genre: Stop-Motion Animation, Fantasy Adventure
Director: Henry Selick
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Keith David, Robert Bailey Jr.
Running Time: 100 minutes (plus trailers)
"You could stay here forever if you want to. There's one tiny little
thing we need"If there is one thing that director Henry Selick probably hates, it’s being mistaken for Tim Burton. In 1993, Selick directed the first ever stop motion animation film to be backed by a major American studio. That film was A Nightmare Before Christmas, and it was produced and co written by Tim Burton, the director of films such as Beetlejuice (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Sweeney Todd (2007). But he did not direct Nightmare. The reason I want to make this clear is because I believe in giving credit where credit is due. I am not a Tim Burton fan – I find his overly gothic, morbid fairytale quirk to be, more often than not, very irritating. But after watching Coraline (I haven’t actually seen Nightmare), I am now a fan of Henry Selick. His animation and his storytelling is what I would characterize as Burton-lite – a little bit of eccentricity, without going overboard. Coraline is a decidedly fun film filled with astonishing animation, and whilst I didn’t love it as much as I know a lot of people (most of them Burton fans) will, I still think it’s one of the better kid’s movies of the year.
The movie follows a young girl named Coraline, whose family has recently moved town. Alone and friendless in a strange new house, with her emotional distant parents completed uninterested in her life, Coraline spends her days roaming the halls and gardens of the house while avoiding the exasperating neighbours. But then one day, Coraline discovers a secret door that, via a Being John Malkovich style porthole, transports her to a bizarre other world, where dinner is always delicious, the neighbours are always fun and her parents seem to care about her. There’s just one little catch. Her “other mother” is actually…wait for it…evil, and wants nothing more than to sew buttons into her eyes. With her real parents missing, it’s up to Coraline (and her feline sidekick) to beat the demon at her own game, and bring the sinister other world to an end.
Hands down the best thing about Coraline is the animation, which is absolutely wonderful. I don’t how much of it was CGI and how much of it was stop motion, but however they did it, it’s clear that the filmmakers put enormous time and effort into getting everything just right. The look of the film has a really genuine quality to it that even Pixar hasn’t yet managed to achieve. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Pixar movies, and WALL-E especially is absolutely stunning to look at. But the animation in Coraline somehow feels more heartfelt. Just like in Mary and Max (which as of now remains my favourite film of the year), the handcrafted nature of Coraline reflects the labour and the dedication of everyone involved, and as a member of the audience, you feel it. I also thought the voice work was excellent, especially (and I never thought I’d say this) Dakota Fanning as the eponymous character, who really does a great job.The movie starts with a fantastically creepy credit sequence, which sets up the style and tone of the entire film. I loved this opening, and it certainly helped raise my expectations. However, after that, the movie lost me for a good twenty minutes. It was sort of an unavoidable – before delving into the mystical world, we needed to be introduced to the mundane. We follow Coraline around the house, meeting all the characters one by one – her emotionally distant parents, the anti-social German gymnast who lives in the attic, the pair of senile, retired actresses on the floor below. This part of the film helps us gain an appreciation of Coraline’s frustration, and as such it was entirely necessary. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t very interesting, and I felt my inner child getting impatient.
On top of being a little dull, I also found the first act of the film to be quite annoying. Like the main characters in a lot of children’s movies, Coraline herself starts off a whiny little brat who I disliked intensely. As the film progresses she proves herself to be very clever and resourceful, and ultimately she was quite a strong lead. But in those initial scenes, I just wanted to slap her. The minor characters in the movie also bothered me – they weren’t bad, but they felt a bit one-dimensional, as if they’d been taken straight out of an oddball catalogue (the same catalogue that Burton subscribes to). Finally, the music. The main Coraline theme was interminably irritating, and was the epitome of “alternative quirk” that I despite so much. All in all, by around the half hour mark, I was ready to give up on Coraline altogether.However, once the mystical happenings begin, Coraline picks up considerably. The magical other world gives the animators the chance to shine, and I was soon swept away by the beauty and creativity that was displayed on screen in the latter parts of the film. Once it gets going, this movie is a hell of a lot of fun for young and old; the story is exciting, the characters entertaining and the animation – I cannot express how amazing it looks. And the best thing about it – it’s sort of scary. I mean, not to me, but for a kids movie it’s rather creepy and suspenseful, which makes for a great change when compared to the normal affairs from DreamWorks (or even, dare I say it, Pixar). I might actually recommend that very young children stay away from Coraline because of some of the frightening imagery - it’s got a PG rating, so parents can decide for themselves (and hey, I don’t think there are any parents who read my reviews anyway).
Before I conclude, I need to talk about the 3D. Selick employs the technology a lot more subtly than most film makers – instead of just having things flying out at your face, he uses the extra dimension to give the film additional depth. That’s admirable, but unfortunately, I’m still not satisfied. The Rick Astley style “Real D” glasses are an improvement on the blue and red cardboard variety, but they’re still overly bothersome. And science is yet to find a way to combat the headaches that they cause. I love the idea of 3D filmmaking, but we’re not there yet. And until we are, I say if you’re going to see Coraline, see it in a regular theatre.There were definitely parts of Coraline that annoyed me. But overall, I still enjoyed it. On top of the animation, the highest praise that Coraline deserves is that it doesn’t talk down to kids. I’m tired of unintelligent children’s movies that don’t offer anything above spectacle (what Transformers 2 did for teenagers and adults). As a lover of movies since a very young age, I believe that kid’s films should aim to do more than simply hold the attention of their target audiences for an hour and a half. Coraline aims to do more. It’s mature, creepy, and absolutely beautiful to behold. At the end of the day, my problems with Coraline indicate that it probably isn’t a movie for me, but if you’ve got kids on your hand, or if you’re into that…sigh…Burton-esque style, then it’s almost certainly a movie for you.
Coraline is playing in both regular and 3D cinemas in Australia now.
