Coraline (2009): Movie Review

DIRECTED BY

• Henry Selick

PRODUCED BY

• Claire Jennings

SCREENPLAY

• Henry Selick

BOOK WRITTEN BY

• Neil Gaiman

VOICED BY

• Dakota Fanning as Coraline
• Teri Hatcher as Mother / Other Mother
• Keith David as Cat
• Robert Bailey Jr. as Wybie Lovat
• John Hodgman as Father / Other Father
• Jennifer Saunders as Miss Pink
• Dawn French as Miss Forcible
• Ian McShane as Mr. Bobinsky

MUSIC BY

• Bruno Coulais
• They Might Be Giants

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Pete Kozachik

EDITING BY

• Christopher Murrie

RUNNING TIME

• 100 minutes

BUDGET

• ~ $60 million

GROSS REVENUE

• ~$105 million

TRAILER

PLOT (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

"As the tale begins, Coraline and her parents move into a new apartment (Pink Palace). Coraline's parents are always busy with their work and pay her little attention. Isolated, Coraline goes off to explore. She meets the other inhabitants of the house, Ms. Spink and Ms. Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and an even older man, Mr. Bobo, who trains mice to play music. She also encounters a naughty black cat.

Coraline finds a locked door in the drawing room, though the entrance beyond is bricked up. The next day she takes the key to the door, opens it, and finds a dark corridor leading to an apartment identical to her own. This alternate world is inhabited by her Other Mother and Other Father, who are near-replicas of her real parents, except they have buttons for eyes. She also sees the cat, which can speak there. These Other parents at first seem more interesting, fun and caring than her real parents. At the day's end, Coraline's Other Mother offers her a chance to stay in this world forever if Coraline will sew buttons over her eyes. Coraline decides she would rather go home, much to the disappointment of her Other Mother.

Upon her return to her apartment, Coraline finds her real parents are missing. They do not return by the next day, and Coraline, discovering they were kidnapped by her Other Mother, resolves to rescue them. Coraline returns to the Other Mother's world with a seeing stone given to her by her neighbors. The cat gives her advice about how the Other Mother loves games and challenges.

The Other Mother becomes angry when Coraline refuses to accept gifts or love, and the Other Mother imprisons Coraline behind a mirror as punishment. There she meets the souls of three children from different eras whom the Other Mother entrapped then tossed aside when she wearied of them. After the Other Mother decides to take Coraline out of the room, Coraline challenges the Other Mother in a game to find the children's souls and her parents within the Other world, using her wits and a seeing stone received from her neighbours. Coraline finds the children's souls with the seeing-stone and finds her parents in a snowglobe. She throws the cat at the Other Mother, and then escapes to the real world, forcing the door closed on the Other Mother and severing her hand. Back in her apartment, Coraline finds her parents safe and sound.

The next night, Coraline discovers her task is still not done: The Other Mother's severed hand is still in Coraline's world. It attempts to steal the key so the Other Mother can come through the door into the real world. Coraline lures the hand to a well and tricks it into falling in with the key, ridding the world of the danger of the Other Mother forever."

Coraline, in a way, is a very magical movie that was really weird. It was a weird movie, but it was easy to understand. And most importantly, it was a very good movie. To make things worst, the movie left an aftertaste effect on me. When I first watched it, I thought it was alright. But after thinking about so many things from the movie, my thoughts changed and I wanted to see it again. After the second viewing experience, I just fell in love with the movie. So, Coraline is about Coraline Jones, a girl who seems very bored in life because everything in her life is boring. And on top of that, she feels lonely because she just moved in to a new apartment and she misses her friends. Her parents don't really pay much attention to her, because they are always busy working. As Coraline was exploring her new apartment one day, she stumbles upon a small door, which had been wallpapered on. She nags her mother to open it, but there was only a brick wall behind it. But later on in the movie, she finds out that behind the door, lies a secret passage to a parallel reality which is eerily similar to her real life, only much better. And of course, this is when the whole adventure begins.

Did that seem interesting? It had to. The movie might start off a little slow at first, but once it catches up, it's a magical and amazing movie. So far, I don't have any complains regarding the movie. Except for the fact that maybe I didn't like the Forcibles. They were 2 sisters that I just didn't really like. Everything else about this movie was just fantastic. The story can be a little blurry, but it all comes clear by the end of the movie. The stop motion animation was done very well, and I enjoyed it a lot. Music actually plays a very important role in movies like this. And just like how it's supposed to be important, the music was splendid and very well suited for the entire movie. The song at the beginning of the movie titled Dreaming, was very very enjoyable, at least for me. Another song worth mentioning is Exploration, which is played somewhere at the beginning of the movie. The movie soundtrack will definitely be worth picking up, which is why I'll definitely be picking up the soundtrack of the movie very soon. The music is done by Bruno Coulais and one song titled Other Father Song was performed by They Might Be Giants. Yup, the same guys who did the awesome theme song for Malclom in the Middle.

So how well did this movie do in the box office? Coraline was released on February 6, 2009 in the United States and grossed about ~$16 million in it's opening weekend. Not much I know, but it could be because Coraline isn't a regualr movie, but in fact a weird movie. But I loved it. It made another ~$15 million on it's second weekend bringing the total to ~$31 million. Also, the movie only ranked 3rd during it's United States opening weekend. And as of August 2009, the movie has grossed about ~$190 million worldwide.

One thing that I wasn't aware of was that this movie was in IMAX, in Digital 3D. I was really bummed when I found out about this, because I had already missed my oppurtunity. And sadly, I haven't watched any movies in Digital 3D (Dg3D) yet. Anyway, since this movie was in Dg3D, a 3D version of the movie was also released on DVD and Blu Ray. Of course, this version isn't the Dg3D version, because none of the televisions that are currently available can produce such image quality, yet. The 3D version that's included is the anaglyph version. You know, those red and blue coloured glasses? Yup those ones. I bought Blu Ray movie myself and watched it in 3D. Honestly, I wasn't very impressed, but that is mainly because of my small TV screen. Another friend of mine told me that he had a large TV at home and the experience was great. Too bad for me I guess. Although I watched it in my small TV, there were some scenes which looked really good in 3D, so it's not a total loss for me I guess. Both the DVD and Blu Ray versions of Coraline include both the 3D and and 2D movie, so it's actually a good deal, and you have both versions of the film. One way or another, this movie is definitely worth picking up in Blu Ray.

Overall, like I said earlier, this movie had an aftertaste effect on me. I did not fall in love with this movie the first time I watched it. But after the first watch, the whole movie was in my head, and I was just thinking of so many things about the movie. Then, I had to watch it again. So after my second viewing experience, I magically fell in love with the movie. Coraline is definitely a must watch, but not everyone will like it, because of how weird the movie flows. It's worth watching for it's animation, story, music, voice acting and basically eveything else. But if you end up not liking it, don't say I didn't warn you. And besides, I'm just some guy who's letting the world know what I thought about the movie.

Final Verdict: 4 / 5