Coraline

When Coraline moves to an old house, she feels bored and neglected by her parents. She finds a hidden door with a bricked up passage. During the night, she crosses the passage and finds a parallel world where everybody has buttons instead of eyes, with caring parents and all her dreams coming true. When the Other Mother invites Coriline to stay in her world forever, the girl refuses and finds that the alternate reality where she is trapped is only a trick to lure her.

"Coraline" is a dark and creepy animation that follows the style of Tim Burton in "Corpse Bride" or "The Nightmare Before Christmas" with non- likable characters. In addition, there is no subtle message for children. Therefore, it seems to be primarily recommended to adult audiences. The nightmarish environment is supported by awesome cinematography and a great music score. None of the characters is totally likable .My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Coraline"

When i saw a teaser of this film i didn't imagine it would be a fantasy/horror movie for kids. That's great because there aren't many, and it must be difficult to display a colorful world with the right amount of frightening elements not to leave a child having bad dreams up to adulthood.

Coraline is a girl who wishes she'd had more attention from her parents, a prettier place to live and better neighbors. After she discovers the entrance to an apparently enhanced version of her reality, she'll soon find out that too much perfection can't be real.

Good and imaginative story, delighting visuals, creepiness from the beginning and a couple scary scenes make this an enjoyable film.

Henry Selick's "Coraline" is a smart adaptation of Neil Gaiman's extremely popular award-winning novella. Selick's screenplay is excellent and faithful without being a carbon-copy of Gaiman's story, and Selick adds some of his own dialogue to the film, so his contribution is most certainly not only visual, and chooses which dialogue to use from the novel wisely. Less of a horror story than the novella and more of a dark fantasy, "Coraline" features a well-written and well-drawn lead character and brings the novel's bizarre world to life without compromise. The film's fantasy world grows more bizarre each time we see it, and is as discomforting as it is fun. I missed the singing rats from the novella, but this was more than compensated for by the visual splendor of the garden scene, and there are numerous other examples of the changes from the novel making total sense as Selick's vision of the story differs from Gaiman, but doesn't betray the original work of art, only compliments it. The voice cast is very good and one cannot praise the spectacular animation enough. I was very pleased with the 3D presentation here, it was very, very rarely (only once or twice) used as a 'cool effect', and overall was very tastefully used to give the visuals more depth. Perhaps the first really good film to have a wide release in 2009, and looking at the next few weeks I see more than one film I'm moderately interested in, so this might end up being a pretty good year.

Feisty eleven-year-old Coraline walks through a secret door and discovers a parallel reality. That reality is sort of similar to the life she already knows yet deeply unsettling in a number of ways. Coraline (voice of Dakota Fanning) begins a journey of adventure and self discovery when her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman) relocate the family to Oregon from Michigan. No one in this new space has time for her so she spends her time exploring her new neighborhood with an talkative local boy named Wybie Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.). After discovering the odd neighbors all of whom are true characters, she is still bored somehow.

All of this immense undertaking is courtesy writer and director Henry Selick, director of Nightmare Before Christmas, and the well crafted adaptation of Neil Gaiman's international best-selling children's novel. To Selick's credit this is the first 3D stop motion ever made; stereoscopic 3D. Selick himself worked on the film for three years. The style is stunning and the story is an unwavering fairy-tale nightmare that has some genuinely scary moments. is a masterful movie and an exciting tale of mystery and imagination.

In the rotting nooks and crannies of Coraline's new home the real story begins and where she discovers a hidden doorway behind the wallpaper. Inside is her alternate space where there are doubles of her distracted parents now lavish loving attention on Coraline, the oddball neighbors are friendlier, and her pesky friend long longer speaks. Only her parents' eyes now black buttons give a clue that something isn't quite right.

Selick has created a world as much for adults as children as there are references dotted throughout that the young won't understand. The imagery, however, is very child like. Both talents live side by side and bodes well for Selick's previous work in Nightmare before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and even Monkeybone. His work has always been fascinating. Gaiman is to be credited with the story for sure, but this is Selick through and through. This film is sure to become an instant classic and as well executed as this movie is it should be.

First - if you see this movie, try to see the 3D version - not all presentations are in 3D. Second, know that this movie is way too dark (IMHO) for kids under 10. Not only could the visuals be too intense, but the pacing is not that of a children's show.

OK - that said, this movie is great. The strength is in three areas: visuals (scenery, characters, and little 'details'), style (this is movie is simply a work of art - a very dark and offbeat style) and emotional impact (the film visually evokes a lot of childhood feelings about growing up).

The basic setup: A little girl and her parents move into a big, mysterious old home. One night, she learns that a little door in the house opens into a passageway to a parallel world. In this world, there are alternate versions of her parents, friends and everything ... as she journeys back and forth, she learns more and more about this world ... and the story progresses from there.

If that sounds a bit too simplistic, there's more to it in the full story. Plus, it's presented in a serious and dark tone - which adds to it's mystique. The only area I can knock it is in a tame use of 3D. There are definitely some spectacular 3D parts, but the way it's used in general makes it fade into background

If you're drawn to the visual aspects of movies, then this is must-see movie for 2009.