Review of ParaNorman (2012) by Galina K — 11 Apr 2014

Spoiler alert! Do not continue unless you either have seen the movie, or just don't care.

Oh, boy, where do I even begin with this? ParaNorman is not a terrible movie, but it is far from a decent one. 1: The majority of the characters are unlikable. 2: The plot is cliched. 3: The introduction to the town was ridiculous. 4: The ending...didn't work. At. All.

1: Norman is almost a stereotypical emo, Courtney is a b****, Mitch is a dumb***, Alvin, well, is dumber than Mitch, Neil is annoying, I wanted to see the father die and the mother was barely there, even when she was there.

2: The whole thing is just a variation of the "freak gets picked on by townsfolk, townsfolk get into danger, freak saves town, freak becomes a hero" storyline. No really big changes here.

3: When Norman heads into town, we see the town's billboard. (Speaking of cliches...) On it is "Welcome to Blythe Hallow." And next to those words are three happy-go-lucky people. One of them is a witch. Being hanged. I actually shouted out, "Are you kidding me?!".

(This is where the spoilers begin).

4: OK, I know this is going to sound bad, but it's not exactly how you think it'll turn out. I did not like the revelation that Mitch was gay for one reason: it was at the end, which made me feel like...like... OK, picture this: you're walking down a sidewalk, bright and sunny day. Then you're hit in the head with a baseball out of Wrigley Fields. It was, quite literally, out of nowhere. I think that the characters could have been better used if it was in the *middle* of the movie, not the end.

(End of spoilers.).

But, there were good, semi-redeeming qualities to the movie. I really liked the score for the villain, and I really liked the design for the villain. If the rest of the movie wasn't as bad as it turned out to be, I'd have put the villain next to the likes of Darth Vader, they were that bad***.

All-in-all, I would not pay to see this movie again. I watched it online, and I'm glad it was free. And as I've seen both this and Frankenweenie, I think that out of the two, the clear winner is the latter.