Brought to you by the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Sellick, not Tim Burton) comes a children's fairy tale originally written by Neil Gaiman, author of Neverwhere, American Gods and Anansi Boys.

I've been anticipating this movie for several months, especially since I have the audiobook narrated by Gaiman himself. I will say, he does fantastic voices and it would be great to hear a few exerpts dubbed in the film in a bonus feature later on. However, the film did leave a bit to be desired.

This story heavily reminds me of Mirrormask, Gaiman's 2005 film of a girl who finds a world based on her imagination (which in itself is a variation of Wizard of Oz). Coraline is the tale of the titular Coraline (not Caroline), a precautious young girl who is unhappy with her life. Much like Dorothy and Gaiman's Helena of MirrorMask, Coraline wishes to escape her boring reality and find something more exciting. She discovers a hidden door in her house that leads to a parallel world, a fantastic version of her own. All seems delightful, until Coraline realizes the horrifying truth about this place.

The problem with children's movies is that there is little effort for exposition. It quickly introduces unhappy girl with unhappy family, then we're off to fantasy land. There's little context that places the story the story, but there is an unusual amount of technology displayed for stop-motion (cars, computers, cell phones). The film was a bit rushed if you are familiar with the text, text which isn't used in the script as much as it should have been since it is Neil Gaiman. I did find myself checking the clock and timing the pace, which quickly wrapped up at the end. Maybe I'm getting too old and picky for films to have substance, but Neil Gaiman's work deserves it. Children aren't allergic to plot, Hollywood.

The figures used in the stop-motion are not like Nightmare Before Christmas, but rather doll-like in their features, making the theme of button eyes and fantasy-verse more appropriate. The animation is, however, in the same vein as Nightmare and Corpse Bride, a style that is certainly fading in perference for CGI, but I would hope that children have an appreciation for it. The physical nature of the animation has a greater value to traditional artists, something we have lost in favor for computer generated talking animals. I did see it in "3-D", which isn't anything new to someone who went to "Muppets in 3-D" as a child. As with all stereoscopic films, the production goes out of its way to point fingers and other objects directly at you, but I wasn't enthralled by the experience.

The cast has been appropriately chosen, from Dakota Fanning, to Terry Hatcher and my voice actor favorite, Keith David. American voice acting isn't a very responsible industry; they tend to favor celebrities for their names over their voices. Disney films typically get actors with a family-film background or those with unremarkable voices so they can easily be replaced. With this cast, it doesn't even matter who they are, just that they have great voices and they fit their roles perfectly.

Be warned, this film is for families, but not for children who have been coddled by parents who keep them "protected" by dark fantasy. This may scare them, but let's face it, they need to be scared. Kids love being scared more than adults do. Coraline isn't as maccabre as Tim Burton's films, but some of the themes can be disturbing for anyone not accustomed to Neil Gaiman (I recommend M is for Magic for children and Anansi Boys for adults). To any parents who feel that "family movies" such as these are completely inappropriate for their children for their bizzare and sometimes maccabre visuals and themes, I would say that it is stories like these that ignite imaginations. This is easily my family film of the year, so go out immediately and see this.