New 3D stop-motion movie both enchants and disturbs
Brittany Baker
Issue date: 2/24/09 Section: Entertainment
|
Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) is a very inquisitive and quirky eleven year old girl who has just moved into an apartment in an unusual old house with her seriously distracted parents.
Her mother (Teri Hatcher) and father (John Hodgman) are busy with their work and don't have much time at all for Coraline, so she takes it upon herself to explore her new environment.
After visiting the bizarre Russian acrobat, Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane), who lives above her, and the loony old stage actresses, Miss' Spink and Forcible(Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French), who inhabit the apartment below her, Coraline begins to doubt that anything about her new home will satisfy her insatiable appetite for adventure; but she was wrong.
Soon Coraline discovers a hidden door in the house that opens a secret passageway to a parallel universe that is strikingly similar to her real life-only much more interesting.
She is welcomed by her Other mother and Other father who seem impossibly perfect, besides the fact that their eyes are flat black buttons. Coraline is the center of attention in this alternate realm, and she even begins to think that this Other world may be where she belongs.
Then her whimsical journey turns dangerous when her Other mother schemes to keep Coraline by her side forever and ever by plucking Coraline's eyes out and replacing them with the same dull black buttons as her Other parents.
Parents should be aware that even though this film has a PG rating Coraline's images of creepy ghost children, suggestive humor, and more than half-naked old ladies make this movie seem more suitable for the PG-13 audience.
Director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach) opens up a world of dark and twisted wonder that is incredibly detailed and vivid in this eerie yet fantastic film.