© Ashley Ragovin

Modern day children's entertainment has all but lost that existential sting found in so many of the classics. Roald Dahl turned a child into an engorged blueberry, Lewis Carroll trapped a bored little girl in a world filled with monsters and so many of Grimm's Fairytales frightened children into being "careful what they wish for."

The tagline for Henry Selick's ("The Nightmare Before Christmas") latest achievement "Coraline" carries the same warning, and the film upholds many of the same ominous and often frightening visions. Not surprising, given the film was adapted from the book by darkly imaginative Neil Gaiman, whose style rests somewhere between the aforementioned classics and horror writer Stephen King.

Told through intricate and meticulous 3-D stop-motion animation, the film follows the blue-haired and bored Coraline Jones, an adolescent girl too smart to be content with plopping herself in front of the TV. The product of two workaholic parents who never seem to look up from their computers, "Coraline" begins exploring her family's new home in Oregon, which is also shared with a handful of eccentric personalities.
The spindly and pot-bellied Russian circus performer who lives upstairs is training a troupe of acrobatic jumping mice. Two obese and chatty former actresses live downstairs and have a bizarre and twisted obsession with Scotty dogs and saltwater taffy. Outside the house, Coraline runs into an annoying neighbor boy named Wybie and his sly-eyed cat.

Nevertheless, Coraline seems to be bored with it all, until she discovers a secret door inside her house that leads her into an alternate world, similar, but much better than the one she knows. Here, her "other parents" feed her a buffet of tempting delights and shower her with affection and fun. The neighbors are tolerable and far more entertaining than before and the "other" Wybie has his own questionable improvements in this new world.

Everything seems better here, but there is something sinister behind the "other mother's" hollow, black button eyes. Soon Coraline learns just how malevolent the newfound perfection of this world can be.

While it's true that the film has its share of scary moments and may delve into a realm darker than what kids may be used to these days, it should not be a deterrent for wary parents. It is precisely this kind of fantastical horror that made more modern live-action children's films like "Labyrinth" and "The Neverending Story" such memorable classics.

These films made us feel emotions that didn't always involve butterflies and rainbows. The world we live in is a variegated place where happiness in one place can be equaled by despair in another. It's a place where one's mortality can be put in jeopardy within a split second. Isn't it better for our children to consume entertainment that offers both the positive and negative feelings associated with our existence rather than a saccharine version of reality?

"Coraline" follows this logic, safely forgoing any hint of gratuitous gore for a subtly implied violence. One of the most morbid thoughts in the film comes when Coraline opens a box containing pair of button eyes and a sewing needle and her "other mother" asks her which color she would prefer.

Stylistically the film is a flawless example of both the technological advances in filmmaking in recent years and of Selick's handmade artistry. Where stop-motion animation has largely been abandoned for its less time-consuming computer-generated equivalent, here its power is hard to ignore. The puppets move so fluidly and their expressions are so painstakingly rendered, you forget that they aren't computer-generated.

Thanks to the 3-D element, Coraline's world surrounds you, from the drab, muted colors of the real world to the Technicolor tinge of the "other world." In one scene, the fog rolls in and you feel as though you are walking on the same cloud-like foundation as Coraline and Wybie. It is a film that will be used as a guiding light for all 3-D movies to follow.

Instead of falling into the usual in-your-face, startling nature indicative of other 3-D films, here the technique simply complements and enhances the animation. In interviews Selick himself has said he wanted to stray away from prior films that had been, "just cranking it [3-D animation] up as a gimmick," and instead he wanted it function as part of, "another world that seems richer, where you can breathe."

But as beautiful as the film looks to the eyes, it is missing the key emotional connection between viewer and character. What is most confusing is how Coraline initially rejects Wybie when it was precisely her lack of friends or entertainment that motivated her to venture through the doorway. This establishes her character early on as somewhat of a spoiled brat, neither happy inside ignored by her parents or outside in the company of children her age.

Though she never shakes that bratty image, and you never really have sympathy for her distracted parents, the film is still a visual wonder and a great story adapted almost flawlessly by a very skilled and committed filmmaker.