Saw Coraline today in 3d, and it was really interesting. The movie is quite reminiscent of Nightmare Before Christmas and similar animated films.
In a nutshell, the movie chronicles the first few weeks of Coraline and her family in a new home. They've just moved from Pontiac, Michigan, to Ashland, Oregon, and her parents are busy working on a seed catalog in order to make ends meet. Despite writing about gardening, they're not really gardeners as far as I can tell; the mom doesn't even like being in the mud. Alone and lonely, Coraline begins to explore the house and ultimately finds a door to a parallel house with an "other mother" and "other father" that she can visit in the middle of the night.
These other parents are nurturing and pay plenty of attention to Coraline. They cook her favorite foods, sing her songs, plant flowers for her, and more. But they are strangely offputting and have buttons for eyes. Still, Coraline returns night after night for the attention. Ultimately, the situation with the other parents turns strange and Coraline has to figure out how to deal with the unexpected twists.
The ending, for me, was a bit simplistic and felt somewhat rushed. But the rest of the story development was nice, and I think the movie was overall fine considering that it is geared to a significantly younger audience than the twenty-something female. I enjoyed the acting except for the fact that Teri Hatcher's voice is really recognizable, so I had a hard time seeing her as something other than Susan (from Desperate Housewives) acting in the movie.
The three-d part was pretty awesome, and I forgot about it after awhile. The glasses were big enough to slide over my own glasses, so I had no problems seeing. I enjoyed seeing birds fly around rather than just across the screen. I had reservations about seeing the movie in 3D, but it was the only option at the theater I had available, and I'm happy I went.
Finally, seeing Coraline by myself means that I've now seen two movies alone (this and Wall-E), and I am two-thirds of the way to completing goal #89.