by Ann Caimen

Created on: March 27, 2009   Last Updated: March 29, 2009

When I first saw the trailers for Coraline, I was immediately drawn in by the misleading advertisements. After watching a trailer for Coraline one would think the movie was a modern fairy-tale type story for the whole family. However, this movie is certainly not for young children and it is nothing like any fairy tale I've seen before.

Coraline is a young girl who has moved to a new house she doesn't really like and is never given any attention from her parents. As she's playing on her own and exploring the house, she comes across a trap door. She goes through a tunnel and on the other side is everything she ever wanted. The house is warm, and her parents pay attention to her, and she even has a beautiful garden. Thinking this other world is perfect, she continually visits, until her other mother starts to get very demanding. She wants Coraline to stay there all the time and become part of her family. When Coraline refuses, she's locked up by the mother she thought was perfect. While locked up, she encounters the ghosts of three other children who were also fooled by the 'perfect world'. In order to free herself and her real parents, Coraline must find the eyes of the three children.

My biggest problem with this film is the rating. It definitely should have been rated PG-13. The ghosts of the other children is something that would have certainly given me nightmares if I saw this as a kid. And there's also a very inappropriate part when Coraline is visiting her neighbors. They're putting on a show, and one of the women comes out wearing a bikini and something that looks like body glitter, to cover her nipples. The rest of the woman's breasts are completely on display for all the children in the theater to see. It was completely unexpected, and I was angered when I saw it. That sort of thing has no place in a PG film.

I was also disappointed with the scary elements of the film. I also thought these didn't deserve a place in a PG film. In the other world Coraline enters her parents have buttons for eyes and to become part of the family, Coraline has to get button eyes. I thought that part was a little disturbing, but not nearly as disturbing as when Coraline is locked up and starts talking to the ghosts of the dead children. The search for the children's eyes is also quite scary for young children.

Overall, the film was a huge disappointment. The 3D effect was poor, it was not rated according to the content, and, in my opinion, the advertisements portrayed a very different story than what I paid to see. I give Coraline two stars because, while I didn't particularly enjoy it, I thought it was very creative.

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