Are Those Button Eyes?

Coraline Title Card

Other Mother

     The movie Coraline stars Dakota Fanning as Coraline Jones and revolves around her life after recently moving to the countryside. The movie also stars Teri Hatcher as Mother and Other Mother and John Hodgman as Father and Other Father. The movie is a stop motion film from the same director as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick.
       The movie is centered on Coraline and her relationship with her mother and father. Her parents are always busy and never have time for her. Her parents are always focused on their jobs. One day, the neighbor, Wybie, gives Coraline a doll of his grandmother’s that looks identical to Coraline. This starts a series of events that cannot be stopped. One night, she is awoken by a mouse that she then follows into a small door and enters into a new world. There she finds happiness with her “Other Parents” that treat her well.
  This new found happiness only lasts so long, however. Her new parents don’t want her to leave. They want her to stay with them forever. When she refuses, the other mother transforms into a monster and Coraline narrowly escapes. Upon reentering the real world, Coraline discovers that her parents are gone. They have been kidnapped by the other mother and are being held in the other realm. She returns to the other world and challenges the other mother to a game where if she can find her parents and save them, she must let them go.

Coraline and Wybie

  As a whole, this movie was a solid two and a half stars out of five. The stop motion animation was excellent, the voice acting was good, but the story itself was so-so. The movie was adopted from a novel but does not hold true to the book. Whole scenes and even characters have been added. The story was intense for younger viewers so one with young children may not want to see it. All things considered, the movie wasn’t half bad.