Review of Coraline (2009) by Ethanheinemann — 13 Feb 2017

A Closer Look into “Coraline”.

I have just seen “Coraline” and would like to give an opinion about it. Coraline is an eleven year old girl that has just moved to the Pink Palace Apartments. Her parents write about plants and gardening, but neglect Coraline and just think she is in the way. So, Coraline goes exploring, and what she finds is shocking. Laika Entertainment created a children’s movie based on Neil Gaiman’s short story “Coraline” that was a bit different from all of the other animation pictures. But, it was a little too mature for younger kids. The plot was tough to follow and a little too scary for some children under the age of 9.

On her first day at Pink Palace she meets Wybie, the owner of the Pink Palace’s grandson who stalks everyone.He finds this doll in his grandma’s trunk that looks exactly like Coraline. She thinks it is kind of weird that they look so alike, but it doesn’t matter to her. Coraline and her parents don’t get along very well so she goes exploring around the house at all the different things and finds this little door locked with a key that leads to a brick wall, but that night when she is sleeping, she follows hopping mice to the door and find it open and not leading to a brick wall, but to another world where everything is the way Coraline wants it. In the world her parents wait on her hand and foot, the food is good, her neighbors are nice and are good at what they do. Coraline also sees that there is a garden which she has been pestering her real parents about the whole time they have been there at the Pink Palace. The creepy catch is that everything in this world has buttons for eyes. She keeps coming to this world and has a great time. But, will it still seem so great after she learns the truth about it?

Some things that I didn’t like about it was that it is way too creepy for a PG movie. There were parts in the movie where things popped out and when some of the other characters mutated into different things. Also, they didn’t elaborate on other characters and their backgrounds. The character development could have been better and clearer, their histories were a little foggy. I wish I could have learned more about the Wybie’s grandma and her background. Some good things about the movie is that the actors did really well playing their parts. You could hear the sarcasm in their voices during the Coraline-Wybie dialogue. For a stop-motion movie, the picture overall was very good. The characters had swift movements and it wasn’t choppy. I think this movie should still be rated PG, but I recommend that it be watched by older kids (around 9-12). The plot may not make sense to the younger children and they won’t understand the theme of the movie. They also will be scared and might have nightmares even when they don’t understand half of the movie. The characters’ appearances started to get more creepy toward the end along with the plot, which made it more bone chilling. We give the movie a 2 out of 5 stars , because it didn’t really elaborate on other characters, and the plot of the movie was really hard to follow. It was too scary for most little kids, and because there was no real meaning to this movie. Even with the theme being “careful what you wish for”, the kids won’t catch on to that meaning they will just be scared out of their pants. That is why I think they should have made a movie that incorporates so scare to it but not so much that 7 year olds can’t watch it because it will give them nightmares and you could still make a movie that speaks the same theme but in a better way for all the kids.