That’s right, bitches, start your hollering, ’cause this year I’m kicking things off RIGHT and bringin’ the bodycount ’cause you KNOW Semihain always delivers the…..goddammit, it IS Coraline.

Plot: 3/5

Coraline Jones isn’t happy with her preteen girly life and takes pains to make sure everybody knows it. Frustrated from her recent move to the charming triplex of Pink Palace and chafing under her largely preoccupied or absent parents, she literally dives headfirst into adventure by uncovering a tunnel to another world. There she meets her “Other Mother” and “Other Father,” and quickly learns that she should’ve been careful what she wished for.

That having been said, Coraline, based on a Neil Gaiman novel, comes off as somewhat low-key, esp. for Tim Burton. The action, suspense, and danger are all downplayed, breezed through really, in favor of fast-paced wonderment and the director’s trademark explorations of the medium. Indeed, the main character’s banal life and inmost dissatisfaction are established in flighty fashion, as are all the two-dimensional characters. I usually fault a movie for rushed pace more than anything, but here it’s warranted. However, I thought that an interesting statement could easily have been made by drawing a strong analogy between the tunnel and the Internet; both of the parents are console jockeys (“Coraline, I have no time for you right now!”) and this could have served to highlight the obvious dangers of an unexplored ‘portal’ of another kind. This is the kind of subtext that I enjoy in a story, but admittedly it would have introduced a grimmer tone into all these otherwise sedate fairytale tropes. I kept waiting for it the whole first hour though!

Cast: 4/5

Dakota Fanning, who I’m glad to have zero knowledge about, does an excellent job playing precocious Coraline (“not CAROLINE!”), who she probably isn’t too many years apart from. Teri Hatcher plays both the real mother and the “Other Mother,” the latter actually resembling Hatcher herself. She puts enough vocal difference between them, and musters as much spite and anger into the fairytale monster as she’s capable of, which isn’t a lot considering how hot she is. In fact, I felt pretty damn old realizing that the It Girl from Tango&Cash is doing mom roles now, although she was the first pregnant Bond girl, so why the hell not. Here’s a fun line, sweetly spoken: “Even the proudest spirit can be broken…with love.” This hellishly passive-aggressive moment brought to you by the mother-daughter dynamic.

Coraline’s cootie-infested friend Wybie (short for “Why be born,”–nice!) is a fun and nerdy foil to her own stiffness and impatience. The old British comedy duo Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French appear as a pair of ancient Vaudevillian sex symbols (yeah), and while characters like these top off the whimsy, they don’t add more than fluff. The understatedly awesome Keith David (They Live, Pitch Dark, etc) plays the black cat serving as spirit guide, which was a weird choice for him, but he can make anything sound interesting, so no complaints. Oh, and Ian McShane plays an utterly ridiculous Russian strongman who’s pure blue from lifting weights or drowning or something. Enjoy that.

Technical/FX: 4/5

This is a pretty movie, no doubt about it, even if the aesthetics often double as the premise. Elaborate miniatures were used (some of which my wife recognized from articles) alongside Burton’s unique stop-motion creations. As with much of his work, Burton impresses with not only the sheer work he puts into the film, but also his inspired cinematic sense of proportion and surreal distortion. Coraline in particular is well-designed with a constantly smirking face and wide little girl’s eyes, investing her with just as much character as Fanning’s voiceover. The Other Mother is suitably nightmarish near the end, with a face more like Jigsaw’s Mother. Also of note are the panoramic sweeps of scene and stage, with a theatre full of button-eye dogs and an amazingly colorful garden. This is your real motivation to check out Coraline, or at least pay it some attention while the person who did rent it is completely wrapt. Seriously, I took 20+ caps and wanted to use them all!

The music was pretty good in a few spots, especially the opening theme. It’s lilting and frantic, a cat’s tread or a girl’s skip, with smoothly eerie Italian? lyrics.

Popcorn Factor: 3/5, 4/5 if you have lady bits

This particular cinematic excursion reminded me of my halcyon boyhood growing up in Catchanaburi, across the dusty old road from quite a few prepossessing characters, not least of whom was the Englishwoman Mrs. Lumpett. In our happy home, when deciding which neighbor to visit, it was often said: “You can either like it, or Lumpett!”

Gender here proved a hairline crack as my wife liked it very much (9/10 overall), saying that she emotively enjoyed the visuals and aesthetics of the characters, all the whimsical scenes, and of course the childhood nostalgia. I think it’s a lot like Pan’s Labyrinth on Prozac. Its frequent use of Shakespearean snippets aside, Coraline is truly to be taken as you like it.