ParaNorman

Ahh- stop animation film… The "archaic" animation. One of the earliest forms of animation, from the super old school Godzilla movies, King Kong, etc. all the way to Nightmare before Christmas, Wallace and Gromit, and now- Paranorman. My own personal opinion, up until recently, of stop animation was that it was cheesy, boring and not worth my time. Then I saw Pirates! Band of Misfits and Sarah had a brief interview with Peter Lord, where we discovered the skill and amazing talent it takes to put one of these films together. Seriously??? Working an entire week just for six seconds of film? That is an amazing level of patience…

Armed with this new knowledge, I strolled into the theater to view ParaNorman with a new set of eyes.

It was not what I expected- although… I am not sure what exactly I expected…

ParaNorman is a story of a boy with a gift- Norman Babcock- has the ability to see and speak with the dead. Ghosts, Zombies and Witches are all on the menu for him to talk about a curse that has plagued their town for the last 200 years.

Here is the synopsis:

The new 3D stop-motion comedy thriller from animation company LAIKA, reteaming the company with Focus Features after the groundbreaking Academy Award-nominated “Coraline.” “ParaNorman” is, following “Coraline,” the company’s second stop-motion animated feature to be made in 3D. In “ParaNorman,” a small town comes under siege by zombies. Who can it call? Only misunderstood local boy Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is able to speak with the dead. In addition to the zombies, he’ll have to take on ghosts, witches and, worst, of all, grown-ups, to save his town from a centuries-old curse. But this young ghoul whisperer may find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits

The movie was funny, cute in a "Tim Burton" kind of way- for me the most enjoyable part was watching the animation after learning about the way it is done.

Who this is for- Definitely a specific age group- 7-13.

Who this is not for- Younger that 7 might find it a bit scary and will not get a lot of the humor in the movie- older than 13 will just be bored by the whole thing.

My Recommendation- Take your middle school kiddo to the theater and check it out in 3D other than that- wait for DVD.

Enjoy!

Disclosure: I was given a chance to attend a screening of this movie in order to do this review, all opinions are my own and they were not influenced in anyway.