I just saw 'Paranorman' last night. It was kind of a mixed bag, some parts worked, some didn't.
It's a stopmotion film made by Laika, the same film company that made 2009's magnificent stopmotion film 'Coraline' (Highly recommeded to those who haven't seen it). It's the first of what will apparently be three dark/ spooky- themed animated movies coming out this fall (The other two being 'Hotel Transylvania' and Tim Burton's 'Frankenweenie').
The story centers around Norman Babcock (Voice of Kodi Smit- McPhee), a young boy obsessed with zombies and horror films (i.e. He has the 'Halloween' theme as his ringtone) who can see/ talk to the dead. As you can probably guess, pretty much nobody believes him, and he's not the most popular kid in school as a result. His New England town has a real fixation with witches, kind of like Salem today. Norman suddenly learns from both his weird Uncle Prenderghast (Voice of John Goodman) and his own observations that a 300- year- old curse relating to a witch getting her revenge on the townspeople who condemned her to death is about to come true. So, together with a few other kids, he sets out to unravel the mystery behind the witch, dodge a crew of zombies, undo the curse, and save the town before history can repeat itself.
As usual for my review, I'll get what I didn't like out of the way first. The story didn't really start to pick up steam until a little later on. Also, they could have done a lot more with Uncle Prenderghast. We learn very little about him, yet he seems like an interesting character,so that's a shame. In addition, while the animation in general and character designs are for the most part great (More on that a little later), a lot of the adult characters look really weird visually. One last critique is that I thought some of the humor in it was a little too adult for a movie that's supposed to be PG.
Now, for what I liked; 'Paranorman' was a movie with a lot of fun parts to it. It had a very good message about the nature of fear: We see that fear is a normal part of life, but then also see that letting it take too much control over a person can drive him or her to do monstrous things to others. The latter of the two isn't a message I see too often in movies nowadays, so I'm glad they use it here. While the story takes a bit of time to get moving and a scene when our heroes are being chased by zombies runs on a little too long, its climax (Especially when Norman confronts the witch's spirit) is great.
The visual effects in 'Paranorman' are wonderful to behold. The movie took years to make, and it shows. Stopmotion animation has evolved a lot over the last 20 years or so, and we see that in full force here. There is a scene in which Norman has a ghostly encounter in a bathroom, and the visuals from that scene alone apparently took a year to do. It's all quite impressive. While, as I said, the character designs for some of the adult characters look too weird, the kid and teen characters all look great. I love how Norman's hair is constantly standing straight up, like he's in a perpetual state of extreme terror (On the rare occasions when he tries to comb it down, it springs back up again in less than five seconds). The zombies are all creepy, and the designs for them are unique and quite detailed.
Most of the characters in it were pretty cool. Norman makes for a very good protagonist, he's alternately timid and brave, and pulls both off well. I like how they don't portray him as some pretentious Goth weirdo who looks down on others because of his ability, he's just a kid who likes horror films (I was the same way at that age) and views his ability as kind of cool in that he can talk to his deceased grandma and others, but also a curse in that it makes the other people around him see him as a freak.
Norman's sister Courtney (Voice of Anna Kendrick) starts out as an intentionally- obnoxious flake who is deeply embarassed of Norman's eccentricities, but goes on a bit of a character arc as the story progresses. Norman's pudgy friend Neil (Voice of Tucker Albrizzi) is awesome, he's quite likable and EXTREMELY funny. Neil's hunky older brother Mitch (Casey Affleck) makes for kind of a neat character, he's a cliched dumb jock for the most part, but he's also surprisingly kind towards his brother and has some funny parts (Though the twist in the very end regarding his character is kind of dumb). Another surprisingly funny character is the school bully Alvin (Voice of Christopher Mintz- Plasse, an actor I like a lot who normally plays much geekier characters, the sorts of guys that Alvin would pick on); he is always good for a laugh, usually for the scenes that demonstrate how brainless and cowardly he is (i.e. In one scene, he's trying to carve his name into the wall of a bathroom stall, but has to keep crossing it out and starting over because he keeps misspelling his own name).
The closing credits were neat, showing interesting drawings of each of the major characters while playing the White Stripes' catchy and very fitting song 'Little Ghost' in the background.
And so, that's 'Paranorman.' Not as good as 'Coraline,' but an alright film. See it, if any of you are interested in that kind of a movie.
