If you're going to make a movie that doesn't quite add up to the sum of its parts, you might as well make sure those parts are beautifully formed.
Coraline (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:208
Fresh:184
Rotten:24
Average Rating:7.6/10
Consensus: With its vivid stop-motion animation combined with Neil Gaiman's imaginative story, Coraline is a film that's both visually stunning and wondrously entertaining.
Rated: PG [See Full Rating] for thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor.
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Genre: Childrens
Theatrical Release:08-05-2009
Synopsis: As covetous children are often warned: "Be careful what you wish for." It’s this very cautionary wisdom that sets the stage for Henry Selick’s CORALINE, an eerily eye-popping stop-motion animation... As covetous children are often warned: "Be careful what you wish for." It’s this very cautionary wisdom that sets the stage for Henry Selick’s CORALINE, an eerily eye-popping stop-motion animation tale of fractured dreams and families made whole. As the films opens, Coraline Jones (voiced by Dakota Fanning) and her parents (Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman) have moved into the Pink Palace, a once-vibrant boarding house that’s turned drab and dilapidated. As her parents work feverishly on a new gardening catalog, the bored and belligerent Coraline is admonished to explore her new world’s possibilities. Along the way she meets her fellow tenants, including two aging English showgirls and a mouse-training Russian acrobat, as well as an outcast neighborhood boy named Wybie. But it is a mysterious hidden door that most piques Coraline’s interest--a gateway to a parallel world where her "other" parents and neighbors live only to see Coraline well fed and endlessly entertained. All is not cakes and carnivals for Coraline, though, and the black buttons that have replaced the eyes of these otherworldly imitations hint at darker intentions. When these intentions are revealed, Cora and a friendly magical cat use their wits and willpower to defeat Coraline’s wicked "other mother" and restore balance in the real world. Based on Neil Gaiman’s beloved children’s novel, director Selick (THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS) uses the stop-motion technique to bring CORALINE to life with amazing visual and emotional depth. The result is a frightfully magical adventure that will give the whole family plenty to shriek, cheer, and talk about. [More]
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Dawn French
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Ian McShane
Director: Henry Selick
Director: Henry Selick
Screenwriter: Henry Selick
Producer: Bill Mechanic, Claire Jennings, Henry Selick,
Composer: Bruno Coulais
Studio: Focus Features
Reviews for Coraline
The film combines stunning visuals — there are scenes of incredible beauty — with good old-fashioned storytelling that is funny, inventive and at times scary. Destined to be a classic.
The movie is beautifully crafted, but like the same director's other stop-motion feature, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, it will mystify and in some cases terrify younger children.
It's easy to admire the film's psychedelic surrealism and its marvellous design, but it's not a great deal of fun.
Here the film goes very dark but kids will lap it up, scares and all.
This dark edge will be the biggest test of the film as a commercial prospect: it may be too terrifying for the target audience. But for braver kids – and parents – this is a thrilling, even challenging ride.
Like the Tin Man of Oz, Coraline is a miracle of engineering - and absolutely heartless.
Technically, it's impeccable. But it’s madly out of synch with the 12A certificate.
A gorgeously hand-crafted and pleasurably detailed piece of work. It’s also genuinely strange, creepy and arresting.
The results are simply astonishing. Selick has created a richly detailed, beautifully realised set of parallel worlds and allows us to become as lost as Coraline herself in and between their exquisite textures.
Coraline is more of an odd curiosity than a must see, lacking the storytelling innovation to match its visual panache.
Endlessly inventive and impeccably realised, it’s tough to find fault with this freaky, feisty fable.
It's not really suitable for younger children but their elder brothers and sisters will be fiendishly entranced by the best children's movie this year. Naysayers can button it.
Rich, ingenious and frighteningly close to home, Selick’s new nightmare puts him nearer to Guillermo del Toro and David Lynch than Tim Burton. See it in 3D. Then sleep with the light on.
Admirably, it never condescends, and the subtexts about child abduction and the nature of maternal love identify Coraline as something measurably apart from what traditionally passes for “kids” films these days.
Off-beat, weird, original, intense, stunning, jaw-dropping, enthralling and ingenious, this film is a beautiful piece of work that will hold your attention and capture your heart.
It lacks narrative drive, psychological depth and, most of all, warmth. This is a 'family' movie that offers an extremely dark view of human nature without providing much to relieve it.
It may be a little too complex and mildly disturbing for wee ones, but its lush gothic style and amazing effects will impress film fans.
Coraline may end up as a cult classic watched by students rather than their little sisters.
Latest News for Coraline
November 13, 2009:
James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
James Schamus might be a workaholic. If it's not enough that he's the head of Focus Features -- the independent imprint of Universal -- he's also an established producer and... More...
November 02, 2009:
Henry Selick Talks Coraline, Future Projects, and More ![]()
If you're a fan of "Coraline" director Henry Selick's work, you won't want to miss this interview, which finds him discussing projects past, present, and future. More...
October 21, 2009:
Wes Anderson Talks Fantastic Mr. Fox - RT Interview
Wes Anderson, arguably the godfather of the quirky American indie thanks to the likes of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, takes his first steps into the world of stop-motion... More...
July 20, 2009:
RT on DVD: Watchmen Director's Cut, Coraline, Animated GI Joe
As the entire combined forces of North American geek culture descend on San Diego's Comic-Con this week, fear not; geekiness galore is to be found in this week's new releases!... More...
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