Coraline Film Review

Animation fans i've been taking a look at animated TV episodes for a little while now and while that's not going to be slowing down any time soon. Every once in a while it's nice to take a look at an animated movie which is what i'm going to do today simply because it mixes things up and it keeps you guys on your toes and as luck would have it the film that im about to review for you all today is a bit of a fan favourite and so here is my review of the film version of "Coraline" enjoy.

The plot of the movie is eleven year old Coraline Jones moves with her parents to Pink Palace Apartments and while there Coraline discovers a doorway to another world one which is much darker and sinister then it first appears. I love the plot of the movie it's honestly really engaging and is so fun but what makes this story so good in my opinion is that it plays with everything that a kid could possibly want and that makes in interesting in my opinion.

Starring in the film is Dakota Fanning as Coraline Jones , Teri Hatcher as Mel Jones and The Other Mother. Also starring in the film is Jennifer Saunders as Miss April Spink , Dawn French as Miss Miriam Forcible , Keith David as The Cat , John Hodgman as Charlie Jones , Robert Bailey Jr. as Wyborne "Wybie" Lovat , Ian McShane as Sergei Alexander Bobinsky and Carolyn Crawford as Mrs. Lovat.

The acting just like the plot of the film I thought to be rather good with all of the actors giving solid performances. Hell I really cannot find a truly bad performer in this film simply because all of the actors in this film are that good and all of them are in my opinion perfectly cast as such all of the actors give the kind of performances that you'd expect from them and in this weird and strange film that works really well.

                                                                                       

The animation in this film was done by Studio Laika and I don't really think that I need to say what they've worked on since there films are really well known. If you've seen any of there other films then you'll know that they always put out quality animation and the same is true for this film since the animation is so well done and given that this film used stop motion animation which usually takes twice as long as any other kind of animation does i'm surprised that they did alot of the thing that they did in this film since it would pretty kill there animators.

Just as the tag line for the film would suggest this film plays around with the idea of be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. Which I think it does wonderfully well since it shows kids that even if you get what you want you might end up missing what you didn't know you wanted in this case it's Coraline wanting perfect parents and yet when she gets that she misses the parents that she has and as we see she would do anything to get them back.

Now this might come as a shock to you but this film is actually a kids film I know that's really shocking even more so when you take into account that this film has alot of creepy imagery in it. This proves that you can make a kids film and yet have mature images and imagery in it and this is honestly one of the films that i'd happily make people who say that all animated films are kids films because trust me they won't be saying that after seeing this film.

There are a few things that I didn't like in the film and that's the fact that in the added scenes (yes all of the scenes with Coraline and Wybie are scenes that are added to the film) Coraline comes of as really unlikable. Which is at odds with how she acts during the other scenes in the movie and it makes her character arc a little confusing since her arc is more about coming to appreciate her parents then it is about being kind to this kid she doesn't even know.

The other thing that I didn't like is the fact that the film is an hour and forty minuets long which for me was far to long. The reason that director and producer Henry Selick added in the scenes with Coraline and Wybie was because he felt that if he did a direct adaptation then the film would be around forty to fifty minuets long so right there he's saying that those scenes are padding and add very little to the movie which is sadly how they come across and sadly those scenes make the film boring since they add nothing to the story and I feel that the film would have been better without them. However if he was so insistent on getting the film up to an hour and a half then why didn't he make those newly added scenes important to the plot or at least make them interesting and enjoyable to watch at least that's what I think anyways.

I honestly both liked and disliked the fact that the film took it's time getting going with it's plot I liked it because it gave us time to get to know these characters and thus make us care for them. However on the flip side of that given that's a pretty short film clocking in at an hour and forty minuets they still need to get going with the story pretty much as soon as they can since you do still need to tell a story in a film but that's a very minor issue for me.

Now then this is technically a horror film and so that does mean that I have to talk about the scares in the film. While there aren't any jump scares or any scares for that matter where the film is most effective is making the characters in the Other World very creepy and when they need to make them very menacing which would not only scare little kids is something that I can see scaring some adults as well.

Overall I cannot give this film enough praise because it is truly that good in my opinion and I do think you guys should check out. That being said as i've listed in this very review the film does have it's fair share of problems but to me those problems while they can very easily be fixed can also add to the experience of the film itself which is for me at least a good thing as such the film gets an 8 out of 10 from me.

All the images that I used in this review were gathered from either the official Coraline fandom wiki page , Google Images or Amazon UK. I really cannot recommend any of the websites I used for high quality images from this film simply because all the images I found apart from the UK DVD cover and poster are all medium quality at best and I looked for high quality from this film so i'd say use whatever website you want.