I recently caught this year's new stop-motion animation film, Coraline. Based on a Neil Gaiman story (though I have no idea how faithfully), it's the story of a little girl who discovers a portal in her house to an alternate reality. The other world has an Other Mom, Other Dad, and versions of all the people and places near her house, but everything there is a little better -- nicer, more exciting, more fun. At least, so it seems, until things take a sinister turn...The movie is far more beautiful than it is clever. I can't think of a case where stop-motion animation has been presented so impressively, and with such style. Frame after frame of the film is a work of art unto itself. The settings are amazing, the characters look intriguing, and the performances created by the animators are outstanding. You could watch this film just for the visuals and be happy.
You don't have to watch it just for the visuals, but disappointingly that is the best thing going for it. The story isn't nearly so deep. It's brisk and superficial in the way of a children's book, sometimes bouncing from set piece to set piece more than telling a single story. And yet, it soon becomes much too creepy (and at times flat out scary) to feel entirely appropriate for that younger audience either.
Vocal performances, from Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, and John Hodgman, among others, are all good -- but none of them stand out very strongly to me. Again, the story may be letting them down here. No one really gets the chance to "act" much other than Teri Hatcher, who as the movie progresses, becomes the main source of the creepiness and scariness I mentioned before. (It's a welcome change from talking prat fall after prat fall on Desperate Housewives.)
Ultimately, it's a movie than sort of feels like less than the sum of its parts. But one of those parts -- those lush visuals -- is so tremendous as to make the film worth seeing anyway. I'd rate Coraline a B-.
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