Coraline
2009, Laika
Coraline is an example of a new breed of stop-motion animation: a marriage of traditional photographic stop-motion and CGI, the latter used to help blend the frames together seamlessly and clean up technical flaws. This was Laika's premiere release using this technology, and they hit a homerun their first time at bat. Considering the amount of work that went into it—with up to 450 people creating hundreds of thousands of objects using 3D printing—it's remarkable that the film cost only $60 million to produce.
Their efforts paid off with a startlingly effective film that's distinguished from more prevalent CGI by an entirely different look and feel. The characters are remarkably engaging, and the visual effects are highly creative. It set the stage for Laika to continue producing more features of comparable quality.
DKS 12/17/17
GRUMPY OLD FART-O-METER® Rating:
