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Coraline: Amazing Fantasy Story (for the older kids out there)

“I swear I saw a little Chinese kid looking right back at me from the other end.”

Rating: 9 out of 10

There are a wide variety of animation styles out there in the cinematic landscape ranging from the subdued tones of Les Triplettes de Belleville to the mind warping surrealism of Heavy Metal, and that doesn’t even begin to jump into the realm of anime (Japanese animation). Each style brings its own level of emotional connection and differing amount of level of disbelief the audience allows, but the one style that consistently reaches across that fictional landscape and grasps the hearts and minds of audiences the world over is stop-motion animation. Something about the effect of having physical 3-dimensional objects, not purely pictures someone created, either on screen or on paper, allows the audience to feel the reality of the character no matter how fantastical they look. If they think they can actually touch it, then they can connect to it. There have been some masters of this style over the years (Nick Park for one), but the one who holds the reins of this current generation is none other than the visionary director of the holiday masterpiece, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick. He recently graced us with his new creation, Coraline.

Coraline is a young girl, uprooted from her familiar surroundings by busy, career-minded parents on the move. Landing squarely in the middle of nowhere, Coraline begins to investigate her lonely and droll surroundings. She meets the boy from over the hill and a handful of odd characters that inhabit the rest of the apartment building, but what finally turns the crank of interest in her mind is a small door she finds covered up in her living room. Beyond the door lay a parallel world; the same, yet different; familiar, yet full of discovery; and charming, yet deceitful. Like when curiosity kills the cat, Coraline quickly finds herself part of a dastardly trap to keep her in the “other place” forever.

Right off the bat, before talking about the content of the film itself, a definite stand out point in this case is the movie was made from the beginning with 3-D animation in mind. It was never a 2-D animation that got the new technology run over it, this was planned from the get go with 3-D visuals in effect and that early knowledge gives Coraline a much better grasp on what that technology can do to affect the story and mood. The usage of 3-D here is much better than in my most recent foray into dimension-shattering cinema. The makers of Coraline created a flow and balance of how the technology plays out, using very subtle examples of it in the beginning, more to help create depth than anything else, but as the story unfolds and the rabbit hole runs deeper, the animation and technology bleed into each other for a much more exciting and chilling effect. Towards the end they even toss in a few of the crowd favorites with nasty looking pointy bits jaunting out of the screen, threatening to brush your cheek.

As for Coraline herself, the character is one I think many people can actually relate to, whether as an adult or a child. Her main dilemma is she was yanked out of her comfortable life and dropped into unfamiliar surroundings. Finding herself lonely and unattended to she wanders restlessly hoping to find a purpose for being there. She’s young, precocious and battle-ready at the drop of a hat, but really she just wants someone to show they care about her. Once resigned to her new living situation, she soon finds herself pestered and pursued by a nearby neighbor, a young boy named Wybie. Wybie actually provides one of the most charming and laughably honest moments in the film as he acts out this delicate dance between excited young boy and angst-ridden soul child. Some incredibly amusing barbs are fired from Coraline towards Wybie, both in the real world and the alternate version.

There is a colorful menagerie of side characters that fill out the story and various quests Coraline must go on to reach her goal. Two of these are a pair of ex-vaudeville acrobatic entertainers who live downstairs. Still clinging to the memories of their heyday, these sisters launch into a flashback dousing the film with a light blue humor. Some of their section might not be totally appropriate for young kids and I was honestly surprised the movie wasn’t touting a PG-13 rating. Also falling under that topic would be the villainess, the Other-Mother, who takes on a most frightening and gruesome shape towards the end. Even at my ever-so-advanced age, I still sat back a bit and thought, “Please don’t let me dream of her tonight.”

Voicing the characters are some big names, like Dakota Fanning (Coraline), Teri Hatcher (Mother/Other-Mother), John Hodgman (Father/Other-Father), Ian McShane (Mr. Bobinsky) and Keith David (the cat). All these people showed a great amount of dedication to the project because it took five full years to complete. Of course, not all the actors were voicing the characters from beginning to end, but Fanning did begin working on it at nine years old and didn’t speak her last line until she was fourteen. Surprisingly enough, you wouldn’t even know it was her in the film. All the other voices are fairly recognizable, but Fanning once again shows impressive acting chops and crafts her own voice around the character of Coraline.

Recommendation: Coraline satisfies on a number of levels; as a fairy tale, a moral lesson and lastly, as an entertaining adventure. Once again, not something I would bring the youngest of the clan to see, but I think parents will find it more interesting and enjoyable than they first imagined. Oh, the movie is also an adaptation of a popular childrens book, which you can check out here.

Bolt: Some Sizzle, Yet No Spark

Do you know how close that place is to the ocean? Do you realize how much water that is?!

Rating: 6 out of 10

We sometimes cast a wistful gaze back into history and remember all the purely magical moments of our childhoods: learning to ride a bike, dumping out the first bag of Halloween candy after a monster haul, or playing with the first new family pet. All of these things hold a special place in our hearts and right alongside those for most of us is the memory of watching our first Disney film. Whether it was Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Steamboat Wille or Aladdin (had to mention it since it is still my reigning favorite from ‘The House of Mouse’), those magical cartoons had a profound effect on several generations and for that, Disney deserves a certain amount of credit. Yet, today things are slightly different. In the world of animated cinema Disney is scratching for third place on the totem pole, underneath the powerhouse studios of Pixar and Dreamworks Animation. It’s true, it can be argued Disney is on top of the pole since they own Pixar, but Pixar operates very much as a separate company and they gained their early success and prestige before Disney made the purchase. Disney is merely the distribution chain for the wonderment emanating from the minds and dreams of the Pixar creative staff. So the question becomes, does Disney still have the chops to compete in the animation circuit?

Yes, they do, as long as they are satisfied with coming in third.

Disney’s latest contribution is Bolt, the story of a dog who doesn’t know he’s an actor on a television show and ends up lost in the real world trying to find his owner, who was fake-kidnapped on the show. Along the way Bolt captures an alley cat in an effort to force her to lead him to the Green-eyed Man (his TV arch-nemesis) and also picks up a hamster that happens to be a fanatical fan named Rhino. Their cross country journey is full of adventures and mishaps, all in an effort to lead Bolt home and back to his owner. The journey is also an internal one for Bolt as he struggles with the realization that he is a normal, non-superhero type dog.

Bolt is a charming movie and should be enjoyable to most young kids out there, but the modern day marker for true success in this genre is how many adults can you attract without their children in tow? For that crowd, Bolt doesn’t offer a whole lot. The trailer was incredibly well-designed and caught a good deal of the highlights in the film, mainly showcasing the role of Rhino the hamster, who stole most of his scenes and felt light in the overall scope of the film. Boosting up his role might not have fit in the structure of the story, but it certainly would have brought up the laughs. Another point in which I think the movie fared really well was the depiction of the pigeons, both in New York and in Los Angeles. The movements and seemingly spastic thought processes in those birds were amusing no matter what they were talking about. Those animators really captured a brilliant idea of what it could be like to listen to their thoughts. The Los Angeles based pigeons…well, those were hilarious for a whole different reason, which I won’t go into for the sake of not ruining the scene. (The only pitfall here is it might only be funny to people who live out here and work in the entertainment industry. Even so, I’m lucky because I do live here and I did think they were the high point of the flick.) As for the main characters, Bolt made sense throughout the film and always stayed on a strong motivated course, but I just wasn’t endeared to him. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it was, but something lacked in making Bolt stand out amongst the cadre of side characters and he ended up being only a lynch pin instead of driving force for the story. The alley cat, Mittens, played well off Bolt and acted more like the Chorus in Greek and Roman theatre, providing the reactions of the common audience member, since Bolt’s own worldview was so skewed. Mittens continually reminded us that what was happening was more-or-less insane, but in the end also showed us what was most important. Surprising to me, Mittens felt more like the heart or emotional center of the film over Bolt.

With animated features another big hurdle is to find a cast of voices that not only fits the characters, but also doesn’t overshadow the movie itself. John Travolta provided the voice of Bolt and admittedly when the movie began I felt his voice was too old for the character and too aware of himself, but as it went on I felt Travolta settled into it more and became more attuned with the character. On the other hand, Miley Cyrus was not a terribly good choice as the voice of Penny, Bolt’s real life and on-screen owner. She was certainly picked for star power and to further connect the movie to the teen-and-under audience, but Miley’s voice is raspy, bordering on smoky at times and while that might work for her pop star image, it didn’t play coming from the mouth of a young, innocent looking girl.

One last interesting tidbit is Bolt was actually executive produced by John Lasseter, one of Pixar’s creators who now works for both companies. He was brought onto Disney Animation to help bring them back into the forefront of the animation world, but I can’t say I really felt that Pixar spark inside this movie. I have no doubt Disney will continue to move forward and fight their way onwards and upwards, but so far it has been a slow crawl for them.

Recommendation: If you have young children, jump on in, but if you’re heading out on your own, you better be a die-hard fan of children’s movies. Also, this is being offered in 3-D at some theaters, but feel free to skip that option. I saw the 3-D version and there wasn’t anything really worth the hassle of wearing those glasses and possibly fighting off the resulting headache.
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Journey to the Center of the Earth: A 1,2,3-D Trick Pony

Are they still here? — I think so…—Are they awake?—I don’t know, you poke them!

In every summer there are those movies which arrive in your closest multiplex and you know the only reason to see them is to shut off your brain and look at all the pretty moving pictures. The special effects driven popcorn films are not meant to move the soul, deepen your understanding of the universe or make your heart go pitter-patter (although drop a few attractive people into the cast and you’ll at least get the pitter, maybe not the patter). Although it might seem like I’m talking down to these movies, I am most certainly not. We need them as much as we need all the others. We need to be able to walk into those darkened halls of cinematic experiences and let everything go, not be dragged through the emotional wringer, but calmly sit back and grin without even really understanding why we are. So, in that vein of movie making, we get the newest reincarnation of Journey to the Center of the Earth, and this time it’s in 3-D, ready to pop off the screen and into your box of Raisenettes.

Following closely enough to the original Jules Verne story, it details the journey of a small group as they travel down through a volcano into a world within the world. This time, they actually have a new piece of ammunition not previously available in earlier versions, the Jules Verne book itself. The story is contemporized by creating the idea that there is a semi-secret society of people who believe Verne didn’t really write the original story as much as transcribe it from real life experiences. Brendan Fraser plays our heroic professor who lost his brother ten years ago on an expedition and when those exact same geographic circumstances arrive once again, Brendan rushes off to see if he can gather clues as to what happened. Throwing a small wrench in the plan is his nephew, played by Josh Hutcherson (previously seen in RV, Zathura and Bridge to Terabithia), who gets dropped off to spend some quality time with his rarely seen uncle. The cast is rounded out by their deceptively skilled mountain guide played by Anita Briem (previously seen in Showtime’s The Tudors), which combined with Brendan helped bring about some pitter or patter for both sides of the audience.

Not expecting there to be much going on storywise, I wasn’t disappointed. Everything plays along a pretty straight line and even the laziest in the crowd could call all the shots well before they arrived, but we weren’t really there for that. We wanted to be wowed, amazed, transfixed by the new Real 3-D technology and feel the sensation of being enveloped in this mystical world. How did that work out? About 50-50. The 3-D effects we’ve been raised on mostly deal with things poking out of the screen at you, looking like they’re going to rub up against your cheek, giving you that unconscious tingle up your spine, but that mostly happened early on in the film and felt extremely forced. There is a visual tool presented quickly with a yo-yo that Josh plays with, but his constant winging of the old fashioned toy out into the audience caused not a single “ooh” or “ahh”. Saving some of the magic we were expecting is not what comes out of the screen, but what goes into it. The Real 3-D technology really shows its chops during expansive scenery shots where you can really see and feel the depth of the world on screen. The movie at that moment transforms into a window that more than ever you feel like you could just reach through and touch the rivers, streams and, not my personal recommendation, the lava flowing right on the other side. During those moments I was actually impressed with how far we’ve come in the 3-D space since Jaws 3 (but don’t ask me to see that one again, screaming like a girl once in a crowd was enough for me).

No matter how many special effects you toss at a crowd, we still need to be drawn into the movie by the characters and the actors portraying them. Josh and Anita both bring there own special something to their roles, but we all knew going in that this all rested on the well tempered shoulders of Brendan Fraser. He has become a poster boy for the wide-eyed, pure hearted hero who always finds himself in situations way beyond his comprehension. I give him full merits, he does those roles well, starting from his first major role in Encino Man through George of the Jungle, Blast From the Past, and of course, the Mummy trilogy. My only worry is in this film it’s starting to play a little thin. The same delivery, the same determined stare, it all rings way too familiar now and begins to seem like he has nothing else to give. I don’t believe he’s done showing his strengths yet as an actor, but to get some of that credibility back I think he needs to show his skills as he did in School Ties and Gods and Monsters. He is truly one of the few people who can transition from the big budget action genre into the indie drama space, but I would just like to see him do it more often.

The final verdict, since it is a 3-D film, if it has any chance of entertaining you it will have to be on the big screen, so don’t bother waiting for DVD, unless you have a sweet home entertainment setup. If that’s the case, tell me when to show up. I’ll bring the Raisenettes.

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