Stars (vocally) Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzin, Anna Kendrick, Casey Afflack, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, John Goodman with Tempestt Bledsoe, Bernard Hill and Jodelle Ferland Directed by Chris Butler and Sam Fell There is a certain magical quality to stop motion animation, be it as simple effects work on classics such as King Kong by Willis O'Brian to the works of Ray Harryhausen in 'Jason and The Argonauts' and 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad', to even the bits in "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,' or a full fledged animation feature in this particular format. A gold standard held up often is "The Nightmare Before Christmas," conceived by Tim Burton and directed by Henry Selick. Others include the work of Aardman Animation such as "Chicken Run", "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of The Were-Rabbit" and their latest, "The Pirates in An Adventure With Scientists." We don't count "Flushed Away because despite its look, that one was fully computer animated. Tim Burton himself moved on with "Corpse Bride" and the upcoming "Frankenweenie". Henry Selick's last feature was Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" and the animation was done by a studio called Laika. With that one, Laika pushed to boundaries of what could be done in stop-motion animation, opening up the scale of the production. Computers were used to help build the numerous pieces for facial animation alone. It's reported that the lead character, Norman, has over 200,000 mouth pieces to help him articulate the dialogue and show off other expressions. Coraline had a reported 208,000 facial pieces and Norman supposedly has more. When you consider the effort it takes to create a full animated feature in this format, considering all the moving parts that have to be synchronised in each shot of the frame, it's hard not to be impressed. The plot for ParaNorman is actually simple. Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee) is an 11-year old boy who is far from normal. He loves zombie movies and his room is filled with posters and other paraphernalia related to zombie. He can also see ghosts, and talk to them. This, apparently, is common knowledge around the small town he lives in although no one actually takes him seriously despite how he would casually greet each ghost he meets on his way to school. He does find an unlikely ally, believer and friend in a similarly bullied kid in school, Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), who is a hilarious and sweet character, the best friend you could ever want. Then, Norman is informed that the town's fabled witch's curse is true and that he's the only one who can prevent it from happening. What follows is a very colourful, imaginative and surprising adventure that treads very delicately into fairy tale territory. There are moments of horror and humour that are balanced very finely, and a reaction to zombies that would make you question as to why it never happened in other movies. Expectations and clichés get ground a little, but not everything is completely unexpected either, and that works to the benefit of the movie itself. It's great that Norman is not that angst-ridden kid, constantly haunted by the (supposed) horrors around him, or utterly ground down by the bullying inflicted by the slightly dim Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). And as advised by his grandmother (Elaine Stritch), he never allows any of it to change who he is, but instead does the opposite. It is strange, though, that with all the ghosts around, none of them become really significant as one might hope or figure as the story goes on. It's like with the Harry Potter movies, they're there in the early instalments but largely forgotten towards the end unless vitally important to the plot. Still, the vocal cast are great with Anna Kendrick and Casey Afflack bringing some contemporary humour where their characters are concerned. Norman's parents (voiced by Leslie Mann and Jef Garlin) are nicely formed characters instead of basic parental ciphers. The townsfolk - and there are many - are a colourful bunch with many distinguishing characters among them, even if they are just background. There is a lot of love and passion in the work on screen here. The 3D presentation is absolutely gorgeous with more depth effects than actual protrusions. Creating an animated feature in stop motion means that you have physical characters in a physically built environment, and that lends itself to 3D amazingly well. The amount of depth they have here is surprising given how big the sets might possibly be. To have an idea of how big the model for Norman is, sit through the end credits for the tag. It's not an additional scene but it's a nice little piece where we see the construction of the Norman character in time-lapse and more. Even if you have kids, have them see this bit at the very end. Just maybe one of them will get inspired. This is pure family entertainment, very much a throwback to those 80s type kids-on-an-adventure movies (from 'The Goonies' or 'E.T.' to 'The Monster Squad' and more recently, 'Super 8') and easily one of the best movies of the year so far. It leans close to being a fairy tale, so there danger and some scary moments. By the end of it, there is a kind of lesson as well but it doesn't preach or whack you over the head with it. It plays well to kids and it it doesn't talk down to them, keeping things on a level that even adults will enjoy. As pricey as a 3D screening may be, this is exactly what family entertainment should be.
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