Coraline Review

Reviewing Reviews

Peter Ake

 

Chosen film/game: Coraline.

Bias Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7Uys8m0oo8

 

Objective Review: “After seeing "Beowulf" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth," two recent entries in the 3-D sweepstakes, it was easy to conclude that this fad wouldn't last any longer than it did last time around, in the 1950s. But after seeing the captivating "Coraline," the first stereoscopic stop-motion animated feature, I've changed my mind.

Maybe this really is the next phase for motion pictures -- and what's more, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

In the hands of "Nightmare Before Christmas" director Henry Selick, 3-D isn't a gimmick or the ocular equivalent of an obstacle course. It's an aesthetic enhancement, layering the story and literally bringing depth and texture to the visuals.

Adapted by Selick from Neil Gaiman's novella (the same Neil Gaiman who co-scripted "Beowulf," incidentally), "Coraline" is a contemporary fairy tale about a bored, blue-haired 11-year-old kicking around a big old house in rainy, empty Oregon. Her parents are writers. They basically leave her to her own devices, so when Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) discovers a diminutive door hidden behind the wallpaper, her mom (Teri Hatcher) agrees to fish out the key, revealing ... a brick wall.

It's only at night, when she dreams, that the door magically opens to a tunnel, and Coraline passes through to the house next door: a fabulous mirror image of her own home, right down to an identical mom and dad. Identical, except that these parents give her pancakes, presents and their full attention. That, and the buttons stitched into their skulls where their eyes should be.

Any parent will immediately recognize that this "other mother" and "other father" are too good to be true (they're prettier and more talented, and they obviously don't work for a living), but Coraline is entranced by the dazzling, super-saturated night-world, with its garden of snapping dragons, a circus of performing mice and all the treats she can eat. In her dreams, the grass isn't just greener -- it's emerald.

In one of Selick's embellishments on the novel, there's a facsimile of the only other child in the valley. He's an irritating boy named Wybie, who's very much improved in his all-smiling, mute incarnation, in Coraline's opinion. At least until he musters up a scowl...

Selick's movie can be intense and even disturbing; it could easily freak out impressionable adults, let alone their offspring. But I prefer to think of it as a feel-good movie for overworked parents. There's also a redoubtable talking cat (voiced by Keith David) to ensure that everything will come out all right.

Tapping into primal fantasies and fears, the film also echoes classic fantasy stories from the Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll and L. Frank Baum. The tunnel suggests the rabbit hole Alice fell down, and the crazy mirror manner in which the "other" world reflects back on reality reminds us of the doubling of actors in the film version of Oz.

"Coraline" isn't perfect. I could have done without either the downstairs neighbours -- two elderly showgirls -- or the acrobatic Russian barker upstairs (a little carny goes a long way).

But the whimsy is always offset with comic mischief and the menace of Hatcher's genuinely creepy Other Mother. The model work is extraordinary in its eccentric, jury-rigged genius. A shower spouts rusty water -- fabricated from plastic, apparently. And if you examine the blooms in Other Father's garden too closely, you might see they have been fashioned from popcorn. You can't taste it -- not yet -- but in its 3-D incarnation (about half the movie's release prints will be in traditional 2-D), you'll feel you could reach out and touch.

With an dreamily sinister and seductive score by Bruno Coulais, "Coraline" never stops taking artistic risks. I hope there's a brave enough audience out there willing to take the plunge.”

 

 

The movie received huge love for its unique plotline and array of character designs. Rated 90% on Rotten Tomatoes for being “Certified Fresh” and 80/100 on Metacritic.

 David Edelstein, who is the chief film critic for New York, said that the story was "a bona fide fairy tale" that needed a "touch less entrancement and a touch more ... story."

Both the reviews praise the films but for different reasons. The bias review talks about how it being stop motion makes it good whilst also stating that it’s good for its voice actors.

 He talks about how it’s unique and got a Tim Burton style too it. Upon describing the story of the movie they talk about how the movie is unique and unexpected for what it appears from the outside.

 The critical review what was done by Critic for CNN named Tom Charity, He talked about how Coraline’s 3D animation maybe the next step for motion picture due to its ability to bring life and texture to the visual that makes it feel that little bit more realistic.

The critical review also has more information about the movie than the biased one as the biased one barely gives a review and more of synopsis of the movie’s plot.

Since this is the case, the critical review has more information on the background of the movie, its directors, opinions and facts, etc.

It then goes on to talk about how different people might view different aspects of the film, for example parents might see something odd about the characters of the ‘other mother’ and the ‘other father’ as they seem far too happy and cheery as it seems they don’t work and seem far more beautiful than you’d expect.

The critic also talks about how the director (Henry Selick) talks about how his movies are more commonly darker tone and might seem scary to parents let alone their minors but the movies also echoes that from fairy tales such as the brothers Grimm.

The critical review covers practically all the points that it should do by talking about colours being

My Review

I'm not very familiar with the director's previous works, I've never seen A Nightmare Before Christmas and I haven't heard of anything else he's done.

That was before I watched Coraline, personally it's one of my favourite animated movies of all time due to its atmosphere and feel that the sweet, blue-haired, American girl dubbed the name Coraline gave me.

It made me feel like I wasn't just sat there watching it and eating some snack it made me feel like I was reading it, watching it unfold before my very eyes.

 

Plot: “Hands made of needles re-make a doll to resemble an 11-year-old Coraline Jones.

A little later, Coraline and her family move from Pontiac, Michigan to the Pink Palace Apartments in Bandon, Oregon, which is also occupied by retired actresses Ms. Spink and Forcible, and eccentric Russian acrobat Mr. Bobinsky, who claims to be training a mouse circus.

Coraline's parents work for a garden catalogue and are often too busy to pay attention to her.

Coraline decides to explore their new home, meeting Wyborne "Wybie" Lovat, the grandson of the apartments' landlady, Mrs. Lovat.

While exploring, she finds a small brick-sealed door.

That night, Coraline follows a mouse through the door, where she discovers the bricks have been replaced by a long corridor.

Coraline goes through it and finds herself in the Other World, which is a copy of her world and is inhabited by her "Other Parents", who look similar to her real parents, but have buttons for eyes.

In the Other World, her parents are much more attentive and everything is more interesting and magical.

Coraline falls asleep in the Other World, and awakens back home.

Coraline goes to the Other World three times despite warnings from her neighbours and a cat that can talk in the Other World.

The other copies include a copy of Mr. Bobinsky, who runs a real mouse circus, copies of a young Ms. Spink and Forcible, who perform a theatre show, and a duplicate of Wybie that cannot talk.

On the third visit, the Other Mother invites Coraline to stay in the Other World forever, on the condition that she has buttons sewn over her eyes.

Horrified by this, Coraline rejects the offer. After she refuses to accept the Other Mother's love, Coraline is thrown through a mirror into a secret room.

Inside she meets the ghosts of three children, who were tricked by the Other Mother (who they refer to as the "Beldam") into having buttons sewn into their eyes, thus trapping their souls.

Coraline vows to free them by finding their stolen eyes.

The Other Wybie helps her escape and stays behind, but when Coraline returns, her parents are nowhere to be found.

After seeing her parents trapped in the mirror, Coraline discovers that the Other Mother has kidnapped them.

Coraline ventures into the Other World with a seeing eye stone she received from the real Spink and Forcible to play a "game"; to find her parents and the eyes of the ghost children.

If she loses, she will stay forever.

Using the stone, Coraline manages to retrieve the ghost children's stolen eyes from the warped versions of the Other inhabitants.

She confronts the Other Mother, who has decayed into an arachnoid witch with the same needle-hands that made the doll.

One of the children warns her that Coraline will never be let go even if she wins. Coraline finds her real parents trapped in a snow globe and manages to trick the Other Mother and escape, blinding her and severing her hand.

Coraline's parents return with no memory of being kidnapped.

The ghosts appear to Coraline in a dream to warn her that even though she had freed them, she is still in danger.

They tell her that she must get rid of the key, or the Other Mother will find it.

They also tell Coraline not to be sad, because she is still alive.

As Coraline prepares to toss the key into the well, she is attacked by the Other Mother's severed clawed hand, but is saved by Wybie, who crushes it with a rock. With Wybie's help, Coraline throws the key down a well.

Mrs. Lovat's sister is revealed to be one of the three ghost children.

The next day, Coraline hosts a garden party with her neighbours and meets Mrs. Lovat, and prepares to tell her about her adventures.”
Source: Coraline

Relevance: The genre that Coraline was put in is horror and it takes a twist on horror by making it children friendly yet terrifying enough that adults would fear it. That’s what made it a success and made it unique.

 

Background Information.

The background information on Coraline is listed as what I could find from my sources.

Released on: 5th February 2009 (United states)

8th May 2009 (United Kingdom)

Budget: $60,000,000 (estimation)

Production Company: Laika Pandemonium. The production company that made Coraline consisted of 180 people during its production with a few extras for voice actors and other similar roles.

Though at its peak the movie estimated to have the efforts of about 450 people with 30 to 35 of those being from DDG (Digital Design Group).

Distributed by: Focus Features

The concept art and some huge scenes were done by a man whose style fitting with what Selick wanted the film to look like and hired Mister Tadahiro Uesugi who originally thought that he would be doing concept art for a few weeks but continued doing it for a year, with having inputs in scenes and backgrounds.

One of the artist's biggest influences was the colour palette as in the normal world he was limited to go with mostly greys, greens and brown with only a few variations for different scenes but the palette was much more bright and cheery in the other world which was made to lure Coraline in and also the person viewing the film.

 

Set/Studio: Coraline was made and filmed in a warehouse in Oregon, America due to it being an American film.

It was 140,000 square feet and had 50 lots which was used for about over 150 sets.

To continue to keep the 3D aspect they would shoot in two different camera angles for each frame so that Coraline had multiple sides in which it could have been viewed.

Everything in the movie was made for exactly that purpose, the 3D models of the characters and objects were made using 3D printing software with computer-aided design (CAD) which transformed concept arts into thousands of models to use with multiple variation of facial expressions.

 

Style

The style of Coraline is one that you don't see with most horrors now, that actually scary you while still keeping a PG rating due to its child’s humour and other such giggle filled parts of the movie but that sense from the very beginning that the other world wasn't real or seemed to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

It also made us feel exactly as Coraline felt during the moments of which they happened, during the trapeze act Coraline smiled with glee I felt myself smile and even when Coraline shuddered in fear i felt myself do the same.

 

Animation Style

The animation style of Coraline is stop motion, photographing each frame with no gaps between frames and as i spoke before they took minimum 2 photos from different angles for the scene which makes it seem like the movie feel that little bit more realistic due to most real action movies using multiple angles in a scene to see which looked best.

 

Sound

Soundtrack for Coraline was done with songs by a French composer named Bruno Coulais with one “Other Father Song” by They Might Be Giants. The Singing was done by John Linnell, one of the singers for the band. They had written roughly ten songs but most of them were cut due to unknown reasons except one song. Coraline won Bruno Coulais an Annie Award for Best Score in an animated feature in 2009.

 

Colour

Colour, the colour of Coraline’s beginning scenes while inside the normal world consisted of mostly browns, greys and greens.

Giving off the impression of it being depressing and upsetting for Coraline to live with her surroundings which rains almost every day that's she's there.

It's not until Coraline enters the other world that a burst of colour is let loose and everything is brightly done with reds, purples, blues etc.

This makes the scene seem more lively and happy and the colour of the scene changes from this bright and happy to darker but still bright colour which instantly gives off the impression of the movie changing pace and feel to a more sinister and cruel feeling.

Coraline's colour is the most noticed thing in the entire film because it's so detailed and so amazing that I take my hat off to the designers.

 

Acting

The Cast of actors for the film of Coraline are as followed;

 

Coraline Played by Dakota Fanning

Mother/ Beldam   Played By Teri Hatcher

Father/ Other Father  Played By John Hodgman

Wyborne ‘Wybie’  Played By Robert Bailey JR.

Miss April Spink/ Other Spink  Played By Jennifer Saunders

Miss Miriam Forcible/Other Forcible Played By Dawn French

Mr Bobinsky  Played By Ian McShane

The Cat  Played by Keith David

 

The voice actors in Coraline were amazing, Hearing the characters talked the way they did made me think that only their voices could fit the role of the character. I’m not familiar with anyone’s (except Dawn French) previous work but hearing their vocal talents speak in this makes me want to watch more of their work and see what other roles they play.

 

In my opinion, I thought that the voice of Miss Miriam Forcible was amazing.

The talents of Dawn French i am aware of but only in an old show called the Vicar of Dibley and i haven’t watched anything with her in but I didn’t recognise her voice when watching the movie even after seeing it multiple times.

Her voice sounded so different as though she really got into the character of Miss Forcible, like it was a second person to her with the way she showed signs of age and raspiness in her voice. She also played that Miss Forcible was going blind in her voice acting as Dawn would act stubborn in her voice and act like a higher class citizen.

 

Mechanics

The mechanics of Coraline weren’t much new but the only thing different was the fact that they didn’t use clay like in Wallace and Gromit but rather 3D printed models with different facial expressions and different poses, This allowed them less free reign but took up less time for them to do.

With each character they about ranging over a hundred models in poses and expressions which some were scraped but most were used in the overall end of the movie.

This caused the studio to make over a thousand models of scenes and characters.

 

Conclusion

My final Opinion about the film is that.

It’s wonderful.

The overall look and feel that the film gives me is something that I haven’t seen with any other animated featured like this. Monster House seemed to make everything feel too anti-realistic and not horrifying yet Coraline did everything right with the movie it felt like something that could actually happen in the real world (with a few minor changes). I felt something for the characters and I wanted everyone to be happy and live in the end yet I also wanted there to not just be that happily ever after feel at the end.

While the movie provided everything that was good no movie is without its flaws, for example.

Coraline fails to give an introduction into why Coraline or what her life was like in the end, I would have liked to have gotten to know the characters that little bit more with some backstory as such as with Wybie, why he lives with his Grandma and Coraline’s best friends and what did they mean exactly.

I wanted the movie to contain a hint more of a story and a little more of something else.

Though all in all, I love the movie and I get shivers every time I watch it.