Introducing for the first time on Overreactionary another more sporadic feature: movie reviews. Or as they'll be known, "Cricket Movie Reviews," a title left over from the place I formerly posted them. (There, my username had to do with crickets...Van Crick, Crickets, play on words, eh? And even though it makes much less sense now in the context of this blog, I like the sound enough that I'm keepin' it. Just plain "movie reviews" doesn't sound very exciting.)
Like the Sunday Comics feature, I stick to a format here: A general, non-spoiler plot synopsis, some good bits, some less good bits, some final impressions and words, and a rating.
Coraline
~~~
Plot: Coraline Jones' life could be worse, but it could be a lot better too. Her parents often just seem...too busy for her, and the new house they've moved into doesn't seem to offer much in the way of excitement. Her eccentric neighbors are interesting at best, a bit unnerving at worst, and she doesn't take too well to the one boy her age. But then she discovers a small door in the living room wall...a door that, at certain points in the night, leads to an alternate dimension of sorts centered around Coraline's happiness. Everyone there is happy to see her and seems, curiously, to exist only for her benefit, and everyone and everything there certainly appears more polished, bright, and attractive...with the single disquieting detail that everyone there has buttons sewn in place of eyes. This disquiet will only justifiably grow as she starts to learn the rather dark truth about the sugary otherworld...and make her appreciate what she has back in the real one.
The Good: The art direction is well-concieved and the animation, save for a few small hitches here and there which might have been projector hiccups, is quite impressive--stop-motion isn't easy to do, especially not for a feature-length production, and especially not stop-motion as frequently smooth as this. It's a very pretty movie to look at, and despite the surreality of the plot, setting, and characters, the people and places feel very real, tangible places you could actually visit and people you could, on one of your odder days, actually meet. It also manages to hit a successful tone of creepiness throughout, which is necessary considering it's based off a horror novella (penned by Neil Gaiman, no less...a wonderful comicker). Some of the lines from Coraline's all-too-cheerful "Other Mother" in particular rubbed you the wrong way in the best way possible.
The Bad: Coraline is initially a difficult character to sympathize with, as she's kind of bratty, but I get the feeling this was intentional, to better underscore her change of perception and heart nearer to the end. This movie also has a bit of a pacing issue...it moves just a tad slowly, and I think there could have been an occasional montage or summation shown to better move the action in spots. I also think this film's really going to have some problems further down the line finding a target audience...though billed as a family film and based off a horror novella written for children/young teenagers, I'm pretty sure a good chunk of the content in here would be too scary for your average child (8-9 and below, at least)...and given its targeting it probably won't reach a large chunk of the late-teen and adult audience that would be better able to appreciate the creepiness without fear of nightmares.
Overall: Coraline earns a four out of a possible five crickets. I'd see it again, but the mentioned pacing problem is enough of a detractor to keep it from reaching a five.
Holden Out.
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