Coraline Review

                                                  Coraline

In the horror animation movie, Coraline, a young girl named Coraline Jones, as an only child, lives with her parents in an old house. This isn’t just any house though. As Coraline explores through it, she comes across a little door that leads to a living nightmare.

As the movie begins, Coraline receives a gift from a young boy named Wybie. The gift appears to be a look-a-like doll of herself. She then begins to beg her mom to go play outside in the pouring rain and her mother is just fed up with Coraline’s questions and doesn’t want to be bothered. So, Coraline decides to ask her father and he tells her to look around the house and get comfortable with it. As Coraline looks around the house, she finds this little, secret door. Coraline’s mother unlocks the door and behind it is just a brick wall. She was very disappointed about it. Later that night, Coraline’s father makes dinner, but Coraline does not like his cooking and decides to hop into bed. As Coraline is asleep, e few mice decide to go into her bedroom, which wakes her up. They lead her to that little door and this time, it’s a whole different scenario. Behind the door, is a stretched tunnel that leads to a house similar to hers, but everything inside is much different. All the people have buttons as eyes, including her “other parents”. They show love, care and listen to her when she wants to be listened to. but when she falls asleep, she wakes up in her real house. Coraline’s wish of having all these things has finally come true. However, Wybie’s cat, which speaks in this “other world”, tells her she’s in danger. Coraline is too blind to see that, but as soon as her parents are in danger, Coraline must bust a mission to save them and herself, because she realizes that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

          One of the most mind-boggling things I found during the making of this film, are the creations of the puppet characters. Every detailed body part of the puppet depicts the motion during the movie. Stop motion animation filmmaking, is incredible and it’s time consuming as well. For example, a certain scene, depending on the length, may take weeks & weeks to 

 get just one screen shot. Everything is handmade for the puppets, from the outfits, to the eyes, the hair, the mouth, and so forth.

The motion created for these characters are very precise and thorough. The movement of each body part must be made in a particular way, so that when the movie plays as a whole, the motion of the characters have a precise flow. The people in charge for this particular job must have a lot of patience and know what kinds of positions to place the characters at certain times.

I personally enjoyed this movie. Each of the characters had a distinguished role and each one of them was important. Coraline was my favorite character, because she is the main character and had the most significant role, which was experiencing what it would be like without her parents and wishing for the wrong thing. I think that this movie sends a message that says “be careful what you wish for” and one of my favorite quotes that relate to this movie is, “appreciate what you have before time appreciates what you had”. After watching the movie, you will see why.