Thursday, February 12, 2009
Coraline? More Like Bore-aline.
This movie is a real achievement. It somehow manages to obscure beautiful visuals and magical 3-D with a completely unengaging and drawn out plot full of the typical arbitrary magic garbage that seems to permeate Gaiman's stuff (see also my Stardust review for further critique of his writing). The movie plays out as though it were made for the sole purpose of adapting it to a videogame -- the last half-hour is like watching someone play the Legend of Zelda for the Wii. Ugh. I fell asleep about half way through. Snoozer.
The only entertaining thing about the movie is the presence of all the Scottish Terriers. The rest of it is about as good as Hocus Pocus. Instead of watching it, get really drunk (or get a concussion) and then watch the last fifteen minutes of Spirited Away. That should approximate the experience of this film.
Counterpoints welcome (ahem, Bree).
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3 comments:
Before you start tearing Gaiman apart, let me come to the author's defense. I have not read Stardust, and Coraline is in my stack of to-read, but I've read 3 of his works (American Gods, Anansi Boys, and Good Omens [with Terry Pratchett]). Each of those works have been highly imaginative works that suck the reader into that frenzy that makes you realize you've been reading for 4 hours straight only after the fact. Many reviewers of Stardust and Coraline remark how the filmmakers have stripped the stories to their timbers, with varying impact. Coraline the film might have missed the mark, but that may not be its originators' fault.
OK, but I'm a victim of the availability heuristic here. I mean, I didn't see the new Beowulf movie, but I heard it was ludicrous, and I personally had the displeasure of the messes that were Stardust and Coraline. I guess I'm going to have to take look at the other works you've mentioned to find out whether we have a genuine disagreement or not.
I did notice Gaiman was on the hook for the Beowulf script, which saddens me. Maybe he's better at prose than at play/screenplaywriting.
Nice use of the word "heuristic".
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