FeedCoraline
February 21 2009, 7:30pm
At 100 minutes, it's at least 10 minutes too long, especially at the front-end, where I think they go a little too far out of their way to establish that Coraline is depressed/bored/resentful of her parents/etc. But the animation work is gorgeous, the 3D is used almost entirely to enhance the depth in subtle ways, and a lot of the acting is pretty good. And its *FREAKY*, and I love it anytime I see a truly freaky movie garner some measure of mainstream success.
About the 3D: I'm not convinced that it enhanced my enjoyment of what was already a really enjoyable movie. And they still haven't gotten the framerate up high enough to offset the alternate-frame 3D method they use, so you get a lot of jitter on high-speed motion. One can only assume that this, anyway, will improve, since it's all DLP-based at this point, and I'm sure higher framerates are in the works for that technology, just as with the current generation of flat-panel TVs.
Did I get an extra $2.50's worth of enjoyment out of it (tix were $10.50, vs. $8 for normal movies around here)? As a novelty, yes. I'm sure I would've enjoyed the movie every bit as much without it, but it's actually hard to say, because it was so well-executed that I often forgot I was watching it in 3D (contrast that with, for instance, the forthcoming UP -- we saw a 3D trailer for it, and the forced-depth layering is pretty painfully in-yr-face).
Performance-wise, I thought Dakota Fanning was meh, but Teri Hatcher, Ian McShane & John Hodgman were all *excellent*, as was Keith David as the very Ken Nordine-esque cat.
About the 3D: I'm not convinced that it enhanced my enjoyment of what was already a really enjoyable movie. And they still haven't gotten the framerate up high enough to offset the alternate-frame 3D method they use, so you get a lot of jitter on high-speed motion. One can only assume that this, anyway, will improve, since it's all DLP-based at this point, and I'm sure higher framerates are in the works for that technology, just as with the current generation of flat-panel TVs.
Did I get an extra $2.50's worth of enjoyment out of it (tix were $10.50, vs. $8 for normal movies around here)? As a novelty, yes. I'm sure I would've enjoyed the movie every bit as much without it, but it's actually hard to say, because it was so well-executed that I often forgot I was watching it in 3D (contrast that with, for instance, the forthcoming UP -- we saw a 3D trailer for it, and the forced-depth layering is pretty painfully in-yr-face).
Performance-wise, I thought Dakota Fanning was meh, but Teri Hatcher, Ian McShane & John Hodgman were all *excellent*, as was Keith David as the very Ken Nordine-esque cat.
