Coraline movie review
Coraline opens as young Coraline Jones is moving into the Pink Palace Apartments, with her very workaholic parents. She Goes out exploring the local forest and runs into a seemingly feral cat and her strange new neighbor boy named Wybie Lovat and he gives her a Doll with button eyes that looks just like her and is even dressed like her. She the next day befriends the other neighbor in the building two old retired actresses and a old Russian guy with trained mice. She that night find a secret doorway that leads to a passage to another reality, that she has other parents and everything is just the way she had imagined life should be…or is it?

This is a stop motion and animation mix, which really adds a touch of realness to the images.

This is very well done and almost looks real, because it is, it beyond anything I’ve seem before. They employed hundreds of people to make this film and used a huge warehouse full of sets and puppets to get it just right. This was an expensive and time consuming process but well worth it this film has a unique look everything except the car has its own look. I say that because the car is a VW beetle, and looks out of place with the rest of the characters and the very stylized sets they are in. this is a modern fairytale with a strange story and darkness is probably to intense for young children but it is 2009 and the world is changing fast so who knows theses days.

I loved seeing her dad pecking away at his old computer and it reminded me of myself years ago with the big box on the table for a screen. There is also a scene of Coraline in the other world and the two old retired actresses give her a performance that is so well done with her high wire and singing, its beautiful and strange at the same time. This is a story that is not such a stretch of the imagination, there’s a lot of parents who work at home and their children wonder about a secret doorway to better parents and fantasy. I was surprised at this film and wanted to add it to my reviews because of the imagery and the entertainment value, this is a really good film.

Directed by Henry Selick

Produced by Claire Jennings
Written by Henry Selick, (screenplay) Neil Gaiman (novella)
Starring Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Keith David, Robert Bailey Jr., John Hodgman, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Ian McShane
Music by Bruno Coulais, They Might Be Giants
Cinematography Pete Kozachik
Editing by Christopher Murrie
Distributed by Focus Features