Coraline's "Other Father" has just come home from a recording of Gladiators.

It’s been a funny old few weeks. What with work, my general slothfulness and other stuff going on in life, I’ve not really felt in the mood for blogging. But I’ll try to remedy that now with a quick catch-up film review. You know, just to keep the blog wheels lubricated…

Now I should probably say that I actually watched Coraline (the full creamy three-dimensional version I might add) a couple of weeks ago now, so it’s perhaps not the most fresh thing in my mind at this very moment in time. Ah well. Hopefully you’ll forgive me.

Plotwise, Coraline Jones and her parents have just moved into a new house. Besides her Mum and Dad (who don’t really have time for her), she doesn’t know anyone else in the area. To keep herself amused, Coraline explores the local area and meets an another kid, Wybie, and some of her new neighbours.

In her new house, Coraline finds a small door, behind which stands an old brick wall. Hmmm, disappointingly curious! In her dreams though, the door leads to an alternate, much nicer, much weirder reality containing super-eerie button-eyed versions of everyone she now knows in real life. But is this place as perfect as it first appears? Is it just a dream? Is it her worst nightmare? Is there evil at work? Maybe everything is real? Maybe it’s all of those things..?

But anyway, it’d be fair to say that Coraline wasn’t what I expected. Although if I’m honest, I couldn’t actually tell you what I did expect. It certainly wasn’t the super surreal, visually impressive fairy tale nightmare that I did end up watching that’s for sure. I mean, some of it is just plain bizarre. 250 Scottie dogs happily watching a trapeze act, a rat circus and an evil Posh Spice lookalike aren’t in your average film. At least not in those I typically watch. (“Rumspringa!!”)

Not that it’s a bad thing mind you. It’s actually part of the films charm. The stop-motion is incredibly well done and the 3D, well, that’s just the dogs danglies. Ok, maybe Coraline isn’t quite “a classic”, but it’s definitely worth a watch all the same. In 3D of course. 8/10.