At the dawn of a new age of 3-D filmmaking, the stop-motion/3-D hybrid “Coraline” is going to make you gasp out loud.
This adaptation of a book by award-winning author Neil Gaiman combines two of the oldest film techniques – stop-motion and stereoscopy – and what it lacks in narrative originality it makes up for in visual imagination thanks to director Henry Selick (“The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “James and the Giant Peach”), cinematographer Pete Kozachik (“Corpse Bride”) and designer Tadahiro Uesugi. You’ve got to see this.
The tale’s “Alice in Wonderland”-like heroine is 11-year-old Coraline Jones (voice of Dakota Fanning), a dark-blue-haired Goth-punk who has just moved to Oregon, where she and her refreshingly unindulgent parents (Teri Hatcher and Brookline-born John Hodgman) take up residence in the Pink Palace Apartments.
Among their new neighbors are a couple of ancient British biddies, Miss Spink (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Forcible (Dawn French), living in a basement flat full of stuffed terriers, and, higher up, retired Eastern European high-wire performer Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane), who has a trained-mouse marching band.
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Most notable of all is unforgettably named Whybie Lovat (Robert Bailey Jr.). Whybie – whose name is short for “Why be born?” – is a kiddie-Quasimodo, a crooked rebel without a cause cruising a gloomy-spooky Northwestern landscape of evil-looking trees and an abandoned mine shaft on a beat-up BMX in a skull-like welder’s mask and goggles made of camera lenses.
Also memorable is a decidedly hip feline (Keith David) that might have been drawn by Pablo Picasso, has the power of speech in some scenes and exhibits certain Cheshire-like traits.
The plot of this coming-of-age fantasy-adventure involves Coraline’s discovery of a tunnel behind a door leading to a mirror world where she meets her “other mother” (also Hatcher), a button-eyed dead ringer for her real mom.
This eerie figure wants Coraline to love her and live with her forever – something requiring Coraline to have buttons sewn where her eyes inconveniently have been.
Some might argue that a 3-D stop-motion film is a gilded lily, since stop-motion figurines are 3-dimensional.
But the 3-D filming gives director Selick even more tricks up his sleeve. Plus, I never once experienced that oppressive-claustrophobic feeling I have felt wearing the new glasses, however much better they are than the old anaglyph shades.
Featuring a delightful score by Bruno Coulais and They Might Be Giants, “Coraline” sets a new standard in animation, especially in a climactic flourish involving a giant spider web.
You can see “Coraline” in 2-D of course since Boston has only two theatrical 3-D screens, one at Boston Common, the other Fenway. But I urge you to see this landmark film at one of them.
(“Coraline” contains scenes that may terrify very young children.)
Rated PG. At AMC Loews Boston Common, Regal Fenway Stadium and suburban theaters.
