Review of Coraline (2009) by Jim S — 18 Jul 2015

When it comes to animated films, they usually are sweet family oriented fables but every once in a while an animated feature that's actually more than that appears; like the orchestral musical "Fantasia", the heavy on dark themes "Hunchback of Notre Dame" or the horror film "Coraline".

Coraline Jones is a teenager who moves from Michigan to Oregon with her parents. When she is exploring her new home she discovers a secret tunnel that leads her to another reality where everything is magical, but Coraline will soon discover that not everything is what it seems to be.

With Henry Selick (the man that was truly the one responsible for the beloved "The Nightmare Before Christmas) at the helm of this stop motion animated film, my expectations were high and thankfully Selick didn't disappoint. "Coraline" has gorgeous stop motion animation (which is incredible for a new studio to make this high quality animation), a story that feels like "Alice in Wonderland" meets Edgar Allan Poe (to the point of combining Cheshire with Poe´s Black Cat), a mesmerizing world that will impress you with its creativity throughout the film´s running time, the pacing goes from a wonder/whimsical feel to a full on horror vibe, the voice acting is solid, some of the imagery is absolutely unforgettable, the songs aren't exactly memorable but they are creepy (exactly what they needed to be), the character designs are great even though the characters are nothing more than stereotypes, a fantastic/creepy villainess that will definitely scare children under 10, a well-made creepy Halloween atmosphere, a protagonist that isn't an annoyingly whiny girl neither a goody two shoes heroine, the character development is predictable but it works within this film, a beautiful message, and it has a more than appropriate running time. My big issue with the film is that the fantastic world works so perfectly that you almost forget about the reality setting as it never has a memorable scene and it's an element that comes and goes because it only is here as setup for the fantasy realm of the film (Kind of what happened in "Inside Out", you spend so much time in the creatively beautiful setup that when you return to the real world of the film it comes off as a wasted opportunity of making a memorable setup like Guillermo Del Toro did in "Pan´s Labyrinth").

"Coraline" is a beautiful animated film that has the wonder feel of "Nightmare" plus a horror vibe. It is definitely a perfect horror movie for children (it will give them nightmares to kids that are under the age of 10) and one of the best -if not the best- stop motion animated feature films ever made (Tim Burton needs to learn a few things from this film).