Coraline (2009)

Last weekend I ended up heading over to a somewhat near by theather, in order to catch Coraline (2009) in 3-D. Once again, the theater closer to me wasn’t showing it in 3-D. I figure if I am going to spend the money to watch a film, I might as well go the extra mile, in order to see it in 3-D. When I got home, I turned on my computer, and discovered there was a problem. It seems I picked up a virus from somewhere, and it wrecked havok with my computer. It is currently being worked on right now, so I am using a friends computer in order to write this. I was told I was going to get my computer back within a couple of days, but that hasn’t happened yet. As long as I don’t lose much information on my hard drives, I’m not going to complain about how long it takes. Still, I’ve been in the mood to write, so here I am.

Coraline is about a little girl named Coraline (Dakota Fanning), who has just finished moving with her parents. Mother (Teri Hatcher) is more into her work than her daughter. Father (John Hodgman) is also more into what he is doing, mostly writing it seems. This leaves Coraline to try and explore things on her own. She does meet Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.), but since he is a boy, they don’t get along all that well. While exploring the new house, Coraline (remember, it is Coraline, not Caroline!) finds a small door. When opened, it leads to a brick wall. But late that night, Coraline wakes up to see a mouse. When she follows it, it slips in behind the small door. Coraline opens it, and discovers that there is now a magical passage that leads to another door. On the other side, she discovers a world much like her own, except everyone has buttons for eyes. Coraline meets her other mother and father, who give Coraline more attention. In fact, everyone that she meets in this other world, seems to be more interesting than in the real world. The more times she visits, the more she wants to stay. But as the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for!

I wasn’t sure if I would review Coraline, when I went to go see it. Fagoria has the film listed in their horror film releases, but that was the only place I had heard about this film being a horror movie. Since it is rated PG, I figured that even if it was a horror film, it would be light on horror. That is the case. There are a few scenes that I’m sure would be a little scary to a child. There were some children at the screening I went to. I didn’t hear any of them screaming, or just letting out a yell, so maybe it isn’t even scary to them. The story itself doesn’t have a lot to offer an adult, since Coraline is directed more at kids. That doesn’t mean they have left out the adults completely though. I did hear the adults laughing at things a lot more than the kids. I found the different characters more interesting than the story itself. Everyone else seems to be very eccentric, which just adds to the characters.

The main reason I went to see this film, is because of what a quote on a TV spot had to say. I don’t remember it word for word, but lets just say they thought it was the best 3-D effects they had ever seen. I haven’t watched a lot of 3-D films, but I have watched my share of them. Since Coraline is strictly a CGI film, I wasn’t really sure how well the 3-D would work. It is my understanding that 3-D films use a special camera that helps with the 3-D feel. To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed with the 3-D effects this time around. Maybe it had to do with the film being CGI. I’m not a very big fan of CGI work, most of the time, so that may have been a factor. The voice over work didn’t impress me all that much. I love Dakota Fanning, the girl can do no wrong in my eyes, so that was another factor for wanting to go catch this film. I didn’t think it was bad work on anyone’s part, I just wasn’t all that impressed by any of it.

I didn’t come out of Coraline thinking of it as a bad film. It did leave me with much to be desired though. If you have a young child that is expressing interest in horror films, but you don’t want to watch the rated R, or maybe even PG13 stuff, this is a good film for them to go see. Throw in that it is also in 3-D, possibly anyway, then it should make kids happy and more interested in watching it. Not everything is directed at the kids. There is a almost naked woman in the film. I have no idea why they put that in there, but whatever. Unless you are really into these types of films, I would just wait for the DVD to come out. That is if you don’t have a kid to go with.

3 out of 5 I need a world where computers never crash!