The TL;DR version of this review: The animation, from Portland’s LAIKA studios is something special, and I really wanted to like it. I did not like it.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There’s this little kid, and he can see dead people. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “This kid, he’s probably well adjusted and super popular with his peers, am I right? A hit with all the ladies?”
No! Believe it or not, he’s kind of an outcast! A social pariah, you might even say! Okay, now I don’t want to spoil anything, but the twist? This social handicap of his might turn out to save the day in the end. It sounds crazy, right? I know, but it’s true!
That, unfortunately, is the recycling-bin plot the talented animators at LAIKA have saddled themselves with on ParaNorman. It doesn’t get any better in the telling, and actually probably gets worse, with a story involving a town cursed when their forebears burned an innocent little girl as a witch (yeesh, dark much?) and a climax so preachy, touchy-feely and drawn out that it plays like Chopra for kids. It’s a shame, because the animation is so finely crafted and obviously painstaking that not loving it makes you feel like a real poopface. Imagine your niece spent all day baking you cookies and you have to tell her they’re crappy.
[Read the rest at the Portland Mercury]
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See, now I thought that movies like this were the whole reason why got a Laremy in the first place.
…Or a Burnsy. This one seems more like a Burnsy, come to think of it.
Haven’t seen this, probably won’t (alright, maybe I might…I loves me some stop-mo) but watching the featurette seems to reinforce what Vince says. I think they mention “the script” ONE time. “Look how wonderful the animation is! Oh, yeah, we did all this great stuff to illustrate a mumble mumble story about trails off into silence…”
So kids movies are mostly simplistic and aimed at kids?
My gosh, I never expected to get this kind of comment! “OF COURSE it doesn’t make sense, it’s a comic book movie!!”
I expected a kids movie. Trust me, I try to review every film within the paradigm in which it’s intended. If you don’t want a critique, don’t read one. There are a million brilliant kids movies. This is not one of them. Also, it seemed very intense and oddly sexual for a kids movie. The macguffin was a little girl who got burned to death for being a witch, and it seemed like almost every character wanted to fuck each other, which was odd. It was a mixed bag.
I always hear people say kids’ movies have gotten so much better than they were when we were growing up, but I tend to think adults have just become more childish. That may make me a Pixar heretic, but I will not waste my valuable time on glorified cartoons.
(*loses at Call of Duty – throws controller at TV*)
Yeah I know. Obvious comment is obvious. I’m playing this out in my head like the fight scene between Holmes and Moriarity. Clearly I’m at a disadvantage….
I guess what I’m intending to comment on in a poor manner is that most kids movies are not very well written so no surprises here as far as the overall outcome of the movie is concerned. The oddly dark aspects do make it seem a bit more compelling though.
Was there an expecatation going in to this about Paranorman standing out from the rest of the kid movie crowd?
I don’t know if there was a ton of expectation either way. I saw this like three weeks ago before I had heard much about it. Normally I like dark, but it didn’t really play here. It was like a bad marriage of dark and kitschy with neither working all that well. That said, a lot of critics I admire and respect seem to love this movie. The talky plot and the ugly characters didn’t do it for me, but the animation is really incredible looking. *I* didn’t like it, but it’s definitely worth a shot if you think you might like it.
I think Dingus won my internets of the day award.
When a stop-motion animated film comes out, one that likely took 2-3 years to make, yes, there is a reasonabe expectation that it is going to stand out from other kids movies. You don’t put this much craft in a movie and aim low.
Whether they actually aimed low or not, they certainly hit that target as far as the writing went.
Needs the featurette with Mintz Plasse doing voice work in his FilmDrunk Tee. Anna Kendrick was so eyein’ it.
[www.iamrogue.com]… has a taste at about one minute. Can’t find the material that filled my big screen the other night.
I like that the first comment after the review questions Vince’s credibility by linking a video of him singing Roxanne with his hand down his pants.
Now THAT is a reasonable criticism.
/leaves to go punch Brendan for putting that video online.
I feel like some how Laremy is responsible for that as payback for those morning show clips you played for him.
Oh, I certainly deserve it.
On a scale of black eyeliner to full-on pasty make-up, how Burton-y is it?
Because the trailers looked pretty Burton-y.
The trailer for this played before my DKR screening and a guy in the theater said, ‘hey, Tim Burton!’ Much the way that so many people think he directed Nightmare Before Christmas. I know better. Which makes me better than other people.
Plot-wise, it’s a total ripoff of the Tim Burton plot that he keeps re-using over and over – sensitive, misunderstood child helps ghost/misunderstood outsider. That said, it’s still much better than Burton’s last few movies. The animation has a way different color palette too, or at least from what I can tell with my broken color-blind eyes.
They should have had a kid from Utah battle the undead in his magic underwear and called it ParaMorman.
I saw an early screening of ParaNorman and I have to disagree. I thought that this was a kids movie that harkened back to kids movies that weren’t afraid to be dark and put the kids in actual danger. I thought the story was a nice twist on a type of story we have seen before. The animation was amazing no one is arguing that… but there were a lot of jokes and gags that I thought was good for both kids and adults.
Did I think Coraline was better? Yeah. But that story also was skewed a little bit older in its audience.
I’m not trying to shit on your point, just genuinely curious – when did you think they were actually in danger? That was actually one of the problems I had with it.
The fact that they showed a character die, already gives us a sense that death is real in this world. Up until the Zombies get to the town anyone of those characters could have been killed or bitten. When the town almost burns all the kids alive in the courthouse while trying to kill the zombies. When the witch tries to impale Norman multiple times. Did I think they were actually going to die? No its a kids movie. Do I think that a kid might feel that sense of danger. Yes.
I’m not saying I think this is the greatest movie of all time but having a kids movie make pop culture references to horror b- movies and Horror classics is much better then getting really excited about nicki minaj voicing a ghetto sloth.
As you recall, the zombies turned out to be harmless. That was misdirection and I saw it coming a mile away.
The burning the kids to death stuff, to me, was just the wrong kind of peril to be concerned about. Did I really think the townspeople would kill their own children? It was almost an aside to the actual (admittedly thin) plot of the movie. It felt sort of thrown in and wasn’t really necessary. It was more WTF and I think even young kids would be like ‘what?’ Peril, yes. But not tension-building.
I do have to agree with you about the ending. The last 10-15 minutes of the movie was the only part that was actually a little bit thrilling and well-directed.
I realize I’m splitting Citizen Kane sized hairs about a kids movie, but I didn’t feel any real tension throughout the movie, just at the end, and by that time it was way too late.
“…and you have to tell her they’re crappy.” – “Brittany, I know you spent all day on these, but I wouldn’t love you if I didn’t tell you that these are the worst cookies I’ve ever tasted. Only under the most lenient confectionery standards do these even qualify as a cookies. Maybe baking isn’t your thing? You know?”
The chick in this is the future of hentai
Especially if you have a thing for the chick from the Muppets band with the straight blode hair.
It almost seems like you’re angry at the movie. I saw it and loved it. It was cute and funny and I was entertained the whole time Do you have a personal vendetta against it or something? Because you don’t give much more information other than the fact that for some reason, you hated it. Also, why so sarcastic and obnoxious?
Sarcasm and obnoxiousness is Vince’s MO. Heck, it’s the MO of the entire Uproxx family. That’s why we come here. If you think this review was sarcastic and obnoxious, you should read a review of a movie Vince actually liked. Sometimes I read reviews that are 10 times as obnoxious as this one and am surprised to see an A rating at the end.
I don’t know if you’re trolling, on the spectrum, or some kind of Slovenian spambot designed to annoy bloggers, but against my better judgment I feel compelled to respond, so here goes.
First, you’re free to disagree and that’s fine, I don’t purport to speak for everyone in the world, but it is literally impossible to write even a mildly negative review of a film without getting someone in the comments section saying “You seem like you’re angry at this movie, what did it ever do to you man?!?”
No. I’m not angry at it. I saw it and didn’t particularly like it, therefore the review is mostly about how I didn’t like it. My job is to express my viewpoint, what else could it be about? I don’t know how much more praise I have to pepper in there or how much more I need to say about how badly I wanted to like it for you to believe me.
Second, I could’ve listed off a myriad more reasons why I didn’t love it, but the Portland Mercury gave me a 400-word limit, probably because I’m so sarcastic and obnoxious, so I tried to stick more with the big stuff. If I HAD listed all the little reasons I didn’t like it, I suspect you would’ve complained even MORE about the review being negative, and it would’ve been a lot more tedious to read.
As for the sarcasm, it tends to be an effective way to communicate the idea that a plot is trite. I can just ask rhetorical questions and the fact that we can all fill in the blanks sort of proves my point that we’ve all seen it before. I also find it sounds less clinical than just listing off all the other movies with the same story tropes. Also, word limit.
Anything else I can help you with while we’re here?
I saw a preview of this a few weeks ago and agree with all Vince’s points. Except moreso. I actually was angry at the movie for having such a terrible, underdeveloped plot. The entire thing felt like filler. They had a few really big missed opportunities and one major, yet subtle, reveal that they never followed up on.
The witch put a curse on the six ‘townfolk’ and throughout the movie everyone kept saying ‘the witch will come back’. Come back and what? Bring lollipops for the kids? Or steal the children? While yes, the characters were in peril (like when they tried to burn them and the zombies out of the library) that was not really the overarching plot. It was part of the preachy reaction of the town. They could have thrown in a flashback of a time when the witch actually did come back and wreaked havoc on the town so we’d have something to be concerned about. ‘The witch will come back’ is not something to worry about. Very weak writing in that respect.
Norman is not at all charming or likable.
As mentioned, the character design is awful. The Cartoon Art Museum in SF has a show of artwork from Paranorman going right now. I’m going to see it to see if the mom looks like she had a stroke. She was 10 times more scary than any of the zombies.
Lastly, they allude to the possibility that Norman is a descendant of the witch. Then they never mention it again. I feel like there was a subtext to the story that the cut for some reason which could really have made the plot that much more interesting.
Even with all that, it’s still worth seeing for the animation and effects, and if you see this in anything other than 3D you’re wasting your time.
I know this is allegedly a kids movie but there have been plenty of kids movies in recent years that are not this dumbed down, are much more clever, and have actual appeal for kids as well as adults. I hate to bring up Coraline like everyone else, but Laika dearly misses Henry Selick. The man is a genius. The Muppets (every Muppet movie aside from Muppets from Space, actually), Hugo, almost all the Harry Potter movies, Toy Story 1 and 3, heck, even Despicable Me. All kid-oriented movies that had good writing, interesting characters and universal appeal. The work it took to produce Paranorman deserved much, much better writing.
Also, what the fuck happened to his grandma? She showed up in the beginning like she was supposed to be Norman’s BFF, and then as soon as he was in any kind of danger or tight spot, she was nowhere to be found. A lot of reviews I read pointed out the cuteness of the grandma angle, which I also found sort of touching in the beginning, and then it was like they just entirely forgot she was even a character.
And another thing. Maybe my ears deceived me but near the beginning I could swear Norman’s dad used ‘limp-wristed’ to describe the uncle’s shenanigans. Then later on they have a throw-away line about a character being gay that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. This is just one example of all the useless stuff they threw in that had nothing to do with story or plot, and really just got in the way.
Oh no! It’s a shame to hear that Paranorman is not a good one. I know I’ll end up watching it anyways though, since my son is completely obsessed with zombies and creepy things like that! I must be the only one with pictures of the un-dead adorning my office at Dish instead of the usual bird that most kids draw. LOL! We’ve seen every movie that features a darker side (that is age appropriate for my little guy, of course), from Coraline to Beetlejuice. Luckily, there is a huge selection of movies to choose from through the Blockbuster@Home service from my Dish account, which makes it easy for him to satisfy his, uh, interesting taste in films. At least it sounds like Paranorman has a good moral to it from what you mentioned!