by Ginae B. Mcdonald

Created on: August 28, 2010   Last Updated: July 13, 2011

Coraline is a PG rated, Henry Selick animated stop-motion 3-D horror fantasy film aimed at the teen-ager in you!

"Coraline!" someone is always yelling. Normally, it's Teri Hatcher as Mother or the Other Mother or John Hodgman who plays the Father and the Other Father. I would have loved to have been sitting in the audio booth as these two did an astounding job as Coraline's overseers.

Other voice-over actors include Dakota Fanning in the starring role as Coraline, Jennifer Saunders as Miss Spink, Dawn French as Miss Forcible, Keith David as a wicked-throated cat, Robert Baily Jr. as Coraline's friend Wybie Lovat, and Ian McShane as Mr. Bobinsky.

I took my six year old niece, who was as enchanted as I was, I am just not so sure that children that young should see Coraline. We both said, "Whoa" and "Wow" in the same places, but I do not think that she should have to see moments of nakedness either. Then again, we both laughed about that after the show. She also was not disturbed by the sometimes grotesque characters.

Without giving anything away, her favorite parts were the circus mice, the gardens, and the part where Coraline was able to retrieve her original parents for good.

Thanks to the 3-D, passageways and giant people heads popped out at me, the mother of all fake breasts' smacked me in the face, and landscapes iced over and disintegrated as they evolved before my very plastic and a little on the overly large sized special glasses that are needed to watch this film. God help you if you lose your glasses between the box office and the theater! The movie would not be the same. Really. Where else are you going to get smacked in the head and about the face by such enormous hooters and not have to pay extra for that?

Coraline is an intelligent and resourceful young lady who discovers an alternate familial universe, just one accordion-like crawlspace away. The way she looks at the key that leads us to this space gives us the idea that she knows that she holds an answered wish in her very animated hand. Spiritual, huh? I was as busy thinking about what was going on before my eyes as I was consumed by this series of visual treats.

In the end, our heroine has to fight to get back and then secure her old and somewhat unpleasant way of life, but she does it with panache! Coraline is a wild ride that I would hop on again and again and again.

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