“Coraline” is adapted from a popular children’s novel about a young girl who moves into a new house with her parents. She’s not very happy being there and her mother and father don’t pay much attention to her or treat her very well.
However, she discovers a small door that leads her to a strange new place in the house where her “other” mother and father live, and they’re really nice to her.
But soon, the trouble starts.
On the big screen “Coraline” looked as good as practically any animated movie I’ve ever seen. You lose some of that on the DVD, even with the free 3-D glasses. The stop-motion animation work is fantastic. The film was made by the same director as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” – Henry Selick.
Dakota Fanning does the voice of Coraline and Terry Hatcher plays ALL of the Moms. The voice work is top notch.
But, even though the movie looks and sounds great, the story is a bit of a disappointment. The first 20-minutes or so are very slow and overall not much really happens. And if you’re looking for a fun film for the kids to watch this summer forget “Coraline”. This is a very serious film, which will surprise people who don’t know much about the story or didn’t read the book.
I wouldn’t recommend anyone under 8 seeing “Coraline” because of the serious tone and some scary images. Very young kids will either be bored or frightened – and neither of those is good.
On The Official Kid Critic Report Card, “Coraline” only gets a C+.
It just doesn’t have the charm or excitement of “The Nightmare before Christmas”, maybe because Tim Burton wasn’t involved in the project.