Let the Kids Be Scared Already

Coraline reminds me of every fairy tale I remember as a kid where the children in the story never appreciated their parents and set out on their own only to find themselves in dire circumstances and wishing boring old mom and dad were there to give them a hug. Coraline and her parents move to a house far away from the city and her friends. She finds the other boy living in the same complex annoying, and her parents completely ignore her. Then one day she finds a key to a magical world with different versions of her parents and the residents of the apartment that are way more fun. Every night she is tucked in by her "other mother" and every morning she is saddened to find herself awake back in the real world. What she doesn't know is that she is in terrible danger and that her horribly boring life isn't as bad as she thought it was.

As I said before it reminds me of a bunch of childhood fairy tales. Eventually I learned what the original endings of those stories were and I felt a little robbed. Hansel and Gretel were baked by the witch, Snow White and Cinderella didn't live happily ever after. Many of the children met with violent ends, but people won't pay to see those movies and they sure as hell won't take their kids to see them especially in this day in age where parents freak out over any little thing. And that's sort of where this movie failed me.

Aside from the opening credits, and the very end, there are no real "creepy" moments or anything remotely perilous. The voice acting is great, the animation is excellent. The stop motion animation does add a lot to the feel and tone they were trying for. It in fact looks better than the CG animation nearly every studio is churning out trying to rope the kiddies in. I saw it in 3-D and it was a good use of the medium. There were no cheap tricks and it was used more to put you in her world than try to shock you. Unfortunately I think it is wasted on this audience. I saw it in a sold out theatre full of parents, kids, and some "grown ups" who were interested in it, and it sort of missed with all of us. I heard one kid toward the movie ask "is it over yet?" to her parents and many of us smirked and laughed to ourselves.

I think the movie would have done much better if they amped up the creepiness and gone for a PG-13 rating. The overall story would have been aided much more if it were able to take off the kid gloves. And quite frankly, I think it's good for kids to get completely freaked out by a movie every now and then. It was years before I could watch Gremlins all the way through, and I have fond memories of my Uncle and I watching scary movies late night on HBO and scaring each other. I doubt any of the kids who were in the audience or who's parents wouldn't let them see the film will have this on their lists of movies to watch again when they are older and less likely to be scared. I can only recommend seeing this if you are a fan of stop motion, 3-D movies, or a Neil Gaiman fan. Otherwise it's really not worth the price of admission. C+/6.5/62