The Coraline movie brings the Coraline novel magic to life

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Monday, June 15th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

The Coraline movie is here! Neil Gaiman’s excellent young reader’s novel Coraline has been transformed into a suitably engrossing film helmed by the highly talented Henry Selick, the man that helmed the 1993 cult classic stop-motion feature film ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’. If anyone was able to bring Gaiman’s odd yarn of Button-eyed people in an alternative vision of our actual world, it would be Selick. The visual aspect of the Coraline movie is a beautiful example of stop-motion animation, a moviemaking method that can really be magical when done well.

Where the original book was of the same strange and unnerving sort that we’ve all come to expect and want from Neil Gaiman, the look of the Coraline movie took some people off guard with its use of radiant colour and the method of animation. The Coraline movie is a beautiful piece to view, and will thrill viewers young and old with its weird story and highly entertaining characters.

The voice talent that signed on to the stop motion action of the Coraline movie is extremely impressive too. Dakota Fanning handles the role of Coraline Jones herself, and the rest of the cast has a trio of British television stars in the cast, including Ian McShane, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Teri Hatcher performs the voice of both incarnations of Coraline’s mum. The Coraline movie’s sarcastic cat is performed by John Hodgman.

It is quite appropriate that such a weird book is brought to the screen in such a way that it does capture the ambience of a dream. Stop-motion has that wonderful dreamlike edge to it that Computer generated effects are yet to possess. There is something wonderfully odd about stop motion, especially here in the Coraline movie. It might be the knowledge that the viewer is witnessing inanimate objects moving around on a giant screen, or it might just be that the finished vision of a stop-mo movie is so different to other animated films of the current era.

While the Coraline movie is nowhere near as filled with iconic images as The Nightmare Before Christmas, it is certainly not without it’s visual delights. Just wait for the musical parts, the strange transformations of the characters, and naturally, the scary buttons that people have sewn into their eyes in the alternate universe. Viewers that are yet to read the story are in for a genuine treat as they are introduced to the fantastical world that Gaiman created, a world that is similar to ours, just somewhat skewed.

For people who have enjoyed the book (and it has been enjoyed by just as many adults as youngsters), the Coraline Movie is about as a faithful representation of the original material as it’s going to get. This is one children’s film that will certainly become a much-loved classic for all the family. The Coraline film is pure magic.

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