Review: “Coraline” on DVD

By Justin Hilley

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

There’s an alternate reality that stays with us into college and thereafter. A reality that may be a little dimmer and harder to reach, but one that never completely leaves our imagination. We, like Coraline, the dreamer in this dazzling and creepy stop-motion animated fantasy adventure, still dream of other worlds and characters.

Henry Selick, the director of “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” creates a world inhabited by Coraline Jones – voiced by Dakota Fanning – who moves with her parents to an apartment inside of a peculiar 150-year-old house. Inside the house there are colorful characters, including a Russian circus gymnast – voiced by Ian McShane – whose mustache is as wide as his big belly. Coraline is a curious child, and is ignored by her parents, until she discovers a secret door in her bedroom. And of course, she enters. Why wouldn’t she? On the other side of the door, she’s greeted by her Other Mother – a flawless version of her real mother, better in every way except for buttoned-on eyes. There is a more musical button-eyed Other Father too, as well as more unusually impeccable versions of everyone she has left behind – that is, until the horrors behind the superlatives are finally revealed.

“Coraline” is pure visual gratification. The story is magical and the animation is state-of-the-art. The opening scene alone is one of the most intricate, strange and entertaining pieces of animation I have ever seen.

The DVD includes 2-D and 3-D presentations of the main feature and comes packaged with four pairs of 3-D glasses. Wow!

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