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| Friday, February 20, 2009 06:49 PM |
| On the Viewer - Coraline |
 by Fëanor |
Since this weekend is for some reason the last weekend that you can see Coraline in theaters in 3D, I felt like I had to throw together a quick review of the movie. Poppy and I saw it last weekend, in full 3D, and it was incredible. The stop-motion animation is really beautiful, and the story is wonderful. The plot reminded me of Beetlejuice a bit; a young girl moves with her family into a slightly creepy new house, and finds herself out of place and unhappy, until she discovers a mystical secret about the house. Coraline's parents are busy putting together a book on gardening, and have no time for her, so she has to amuse herself. But the house is dull and dirty, and she has no friends here. The people who are nearby are strange indeed. There are some faded actresses downstairs who are always offering a bowl of nasty, sticky old candy, and who are disturbingly and even rather morbidly obsessed with their collection of little yapping dogs. There's a crazy Russian gymnast upstairs who's training mice. And there's a weird neighbor boy who's kind of stalking Coraline, and whose name is Wybie - which is short for Why Born. They're a crazy collection of freaks, but things get even stranger when one night Coraline opens the weird little door in the living room and finds a passageway into another house that's very much like her house, with all the same rooms and all the same people, but everything's just a little bit different. Her "other mother" and "other father" not only pay attention to her, they are utterly focused on her to the exclusion of all else. Everyone in this other world, in fact, puts on extravagant performances, makes magical gardens, cooks huge and delicious meals, all solely for Coraline's entertainment and pleasure. But everyone there also has buttons for eyes. And they want Coraline to replace her eyes with buttons, too. When she refuses, things quickly become more sinister, and her dream world turns into a nightmare. She realizes she took a lot of things for granted about her real mother and father, and now she'll have to fight to get them back.
The film is a beautiful, eerie, wondrous fairy tale about childhood, parents, and growing up. It's also a magical fantasy adventure about an evil demon known as the Beldam. It's brilliant, funny, exciting, disturbing, and moving. The 3D technology adds another layer of wonder and excitement, so try to see it that way if you can. But even if you can't, definitely see the movie. It's really excellent. |
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