Review of Coraline (2009) by Sebastian P — 18 Oct 2013

Let's start 13 Days of Halloween with Coraline!

Coraline is a very atmospheric movie, it's atmospheric in its characters, its colors, its lighting and tone, and at times it's very noteworthy and likable in its own creativity. This is one of those films where I think that the stop-motion department was at its best, considering that Coraline was made by a new film company called Laika, who also did Paranorman, that's another review, but, let's take a look at what we have.

We have a busy family and their daughter Coraline Jones played by Dakota Fanning, their moving into a new dilapidated-apartment building and Coraline is simply bored because her parents are always busy and never have any time to spend with her. However, that all changes when she finds a door leading to a special world one night, in fact, it's her home simply reversed. There she encounters her "Other Mother", her mother simply with buttons for eyes. There she has the time of her life, she has great food, she's entertained but most importantly she feels like where she belongs and the more she visits the more she wants to stay. Or does she? It isn't until she realizes that the world that she's visiting isn't all hunky-dory and she realizes that she needs to escape the clutches of the Other Mother in order for her, and presumably her family, to be set free...

Let's talk at what we have here. First off, you have to take the fact that this was made by a new company called Laika who just started fresh and new. Laika, owned by the Nike philanthropist Phil Knight who doesn't seem to be the best person to give to a film company especially seeing what he does. But, it keeps the studio opened so I can't really complain.

Coraline tone color goes between warm and cold, warm and cold. And you know what, that actually makes sense since the film takes place in Oregon and I've been there before, well, Washington actually. But it's still cool nonetheless, and this film has its tone down pretty perfectly. When a characters in a house, you imagine it being warm, or when a character outside, you literally felt like it was cold. Stuff like the tone is great and I hope that Laika continues to do the same thing with its films.

The characters are very memorable. You have two old actresses that argue, you have an old man who's interested in the mice circus and is also very flexible. You have another character who gets involved who is actually very comedic. Heck, even her parents, and "other" parents do a pretty good job conveying emotion into their roles, as if you literally felt like this movie was being watched in real life, not in stop-motion. I felt that all the characters were real, I felt like the creepy imagery was real. Oh, speaking of, at the start of the next half of the movie the imagery and the colors get dark slowly but surely and the atmosphere literally takes it time building up with the characters and their speed and pacing. And, I'm sorry, but that has to be one of the most ideal atmospheric stuff that you can put in a movie, making it good for the kids because they wanna see what happen and making it suspenseful, and good for the adults who want to see the imagery and colors of both worlds. And to be honest, I find movies like that fascinating. They give more for the kids and just enough for adults, and I have to say Neil Gaiman should be proud for writing the book and Henry Selick for trying their best (especially at the start of their own career) to make a movie so magical and so colorful...

Are there problems? None that I can find, unless you simply don't like the movie for whatever reason. The characters are likable; they're nice to listen to. I couldn't find any problems, but, I really enjoyed the movie, its heartwarming, its beautiful, its colorful, it's memorable. It's an all-around good movie well deserving of the high score and as I said before, I really enjoyed it.

Coraline - Atmospheric lighting, characters-in-life...