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Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 February 2010Neil Gaiman's book, an attempt at doing a good old fashioned scary story for children, comes to film via the medium of stop motion animation. There are a few changes to the book to bring it up to film length and make it work as a movie, but they were done with the writers blessing. Which he says on the making of documentary.
Coraline is a teenage girl whose parents have just moved to an old house in a remote area. Both of them are totally preoccupied with their work, which leaves her plenty of time to roam around the house and the area outside looking for something to do. In the process she meets a variety of eccentric individuals who are now her neighbours. And finds a passage into another world. A world not unliks the one she knows. But everyone and everything there seems to be much nicer and much more fun.
If you can overlook the fact that they have buttons for eyes.
But when Coraline discovers that her mother in this new world has plans for her, the old phrase about being careful what you want because you just might get it becomes very true indeed.
As mentioned it tries to be a traditional scary story, and in that respect it succeeds superbly. Because there very frightening monsters for coraline to face and a real sense of jeopardy as she does so. All told by a master storyteller who succeeds in creating a character you can root for and situations that will keep you gripped. And in addition this is a work from a talented director who succeeds at bringing it to the screen, making it work as a movie, and giving you a visual treat to go with it.
There's also a very talented voice cast who all bring their characters to life.
Quality storytelling and superb animation make this a treat for those of all ages who love a good story. Although parents be aware that this is a pg rather than u certificate as there are scary moments that whilst some children may love others, especially the very young, may find a bit too much.
The dvd has language tracks in english hungarian and dutch
And subtitles in english arabic danish dutch hungarian icelandic norwegian and swedish
There's a commentary from the director and the composer of the film's musical score.
Eight minutes worth of deleted scenes. All are good but dont serve the story that much and were cut for pacing reasons. You can only watch these all at once rather than one at a time and as each has an introduction from the director it does get a bit repetitive.
There's a thirty six minute long making of the movie documentary. This can be watched all at once or in smaller sections of roughly six to eight minutes each. Covering all aspects from voice acting to puppet making and puppet costumes and how stop motion animation works this is very interesting viewing and well worth a look.
The second disc in this two disc edition has a 3D version of the movie and the box contains several pairs of 3D glasses to go with it. I'd refer you to the other reviews here that talk about the quality of the 3D because they know far more about the subject than me and my eyesight isn't great so I'm probably not the best person to evaluate it.
But all in all a great bit of film making and a dvd well worth getting. The only extra thing in the two disc version is the 3D copy though so if you can live without that you'd be okay with the single disc edition.
