ParaNorman

ParaNorman offers a visually impressive and inventive experience with its stop-motion animation, creating a uniquely eerie atmosphere that's hard to forget. The animation style is a standout strength, bringing to life a world that's both charming and creepy. The voice cast, including Kodi Smit-McPhee and Anna Kendrick, delivers engaging performances that add depth to their characters.

However, the film's ambitious attempt to blend spooky fun with deeper themes sometimes feels uneven. While the story aims to explore complex issues like fear, acceptance, and understanding, the heavy themes can come across as a bit overwhelming for a family-friendly film. The tonal shifts between lighthearted moments and more serious undertones occasionally disrupt the narrative flow, making it feel disjointed.

Additionally, while the movie's creative approach is commendable, it sometimes leans too heavily on its moral messages, which can feel preachy rather than seamlessly integrated into the story. The blend of humor and horror isn't always perfectly balanced, which might leave some viewers unsure whether to be spooked or amused.

Overall, ParaNorman excels in animation and has a lot of creative flair, but its heavy-handed themes and occasional tonal imbalance can detract from its overall appeal. It's an ambitious film with moments of brilliance, but it might not fully hit the mark for everyone.

The thing of it is, ParaNorman is pretty scary stuff for a PG movie, so you've been properly warned. This isn't some over-sanitized Disney movie. Everything from the lighting to the characters to the tense plot adds up to something you wouldn't want your six-year-old to drag you to, unless you don't mind paying for some therapy. But it's a terrific movie, with a style all its own and a madcap sense of ghoulish delight.

Norman (voice of Kodi Smith-McPhee) is an outcast. Know why? He talks to dead people. And indeed, we see them as well, chatting with our hero along his walk to school. Oh, and his grandmother (voice of Elaine Stritch) talks to him all the time while sitting on the couch in the living room. No one understands poor Norman, who's as resignedly freaked out as Haley Joel Osment in the Sixth Sense, so he has no one to talk to, not his parents (Jeff Garlin and Leslie Mann), not his sister (Anna Kendrick), and not the school bully (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) for sure.

It's only when Norman has an episode during the production of a school play (not coincidentally, about an old legend surrounding the town's dark past) that he gains a friend - another outcast, the portly Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), who teaches Norman that it's best not to let people bother you, to not let them get under your skin. Had the story ended there, we may have had a nice, tidy after-school special. Oh, but it does not! From out of almost nowhere, Norman's black-sheep uncle, Mr. Prenderghast (John Goodman), a heavily bearded, slightly loony chap, informs Norman that he - Norman! - must take the mantle of He Who Holds Off the Witch's Curse. Mr. P. has been doing it for all these years, but he thinks he's about to go. He warns Norman that it's all up to him and he must read from the book and then he dies. That was an intentional run-on sentence, for your pleasure.

Thereby our plot is set in motion! Norman must extricate said book from the dead uncle and then read it by the witch's grave in order to break the curse that no one really believes is real. They don't believe it on account of Mr. Dead Uncle has been reading from the book for his entire life, and someone before him, and so on. But now Dead Uncle is, you know, demised, and just before the witch is to rise from the ashes and wreak havoc! Oh, I should note that the curse goes like this - a little girl was suspected of witchcraft by the town elders and sentenced to death. So you can see why she might want to haunt those elders and the town itself for all eternity.

There are people raised from the dead, and the imagery is quite striking; bones, stringy hair, rent clothing, and the ability to remove an appendage and reattach it. Are these - uh - zombies - out to lay waste to the town? Or are they victims of their own device? It's up to Norman, his brain, and his innate ability to talk to dead people to somehow save the day. Despite being grounded, of course.

ParaNorman works on many levels. Adults will love the stylish, almost Gothic atmosphere; older teens will love the menace of both the zombies and the townspeople, not to mention the witch herself. There are, for an animated film, plenty of scares and dark themes - slightly offset by the themes of loneliness, friendship, heroism, and getting adults to just listen to you. For once! Ahem. Anyway, there's a sort of beauty in ParaNorman, as horror and light comedy are somehow blended to form a rich animated film.

Unexpectedly twisted in its own way but beautiful and wierd, so long as the end was worth it it wasn't that bad and the humor was great too,

Paranorman is a well-done animation that flips preconceptions. It is, contrary to some crits, quite deep in meaning and delivery. I would say that the standard comedy related animation is simply a wrapper for a more tragic tale. The ending was poignant and revealing, leaving me with a little bit of sadness.

The film is quite dark at times, but it is ideal for kids to understand that the presented truth is not always the real truth. That the reasons for bad things happening, always has a root. I don't want to spoil the plot, so I will leave it at that. All the characters were likeable, and the film was also funny and enjoyable.

An animation that makes you think of righteousness vs being right.

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The makers of Coraline and the beautifully crafted but story-lacking 9 brought us another animated movie that did not disappoint. Paranorman was in fact a surprising movie. Unlike any other animated movie, this one picks a new sort of approach, that would probably entertain both adults and children.

The film was shot using a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR Camera. To generate the 3D effect, the camera was mounted on a special rig that would take one shot, then slide to a slightly viewpoint to take another shot. However, to generate all the different faces needed for the characters, the film company Laika used 3D printers.

The movie takes place in the creepy town of Blithe Hollow, whose name is a mash up of two other ghost stories, Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit(1945) and Washington Irving's The Legend of The Sleepy Hollow(1949). Paranorman tells the story of 11 years-old Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit- McPhee), who can speak to ghosts. Unfortunately, Norman has no friends because people think he's weird. Even his father (voiced by Jeff Garlin) regrets how his son turned out to be. The movie is a little too horror oriented, but funny and suitable for children nonetheless.

The characters are well drawn, so you can understand each of their personalities: you have the nice fat kid called Neil (voiced by Tucker Albrizzi), the usual blonde teen (voiced by Anna Kendrick), the bully (voiced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse), and the dumb jock (voiced by Casey Affleck). To be honest, my favorite was Neil.

To end with, Paranorman weaves a fantastically dazzling, consistently engaging and touching story. I really appreciated the level of maturity that has gone into this impressive stop-motion animation. A good movie in about every regard, that is fun and entertaining to watch, for both children and adults.