Molly and I headed across to York to see Coraline in 3D. £15 for 1 adult and 1 child. Including the oh so fair extra for the 3D effects. Considering the film industry seems to consider 3D as the future of the movies I think they're rather shooting themselves in the foot, leg and groin here. Because 3D may be clever, it may be pretty but I've had enough of it now. Every film I've seen with 3D doesn't actually use the 3D as a film-making device, it's simply used as eye-candy. And I'm done with it. Stop charging me extra for it, stop shoe-horning it into films (pointing, throwing things etc etc just to get a 3D effect in.) Well, Coraline 3D certainly didn't need the 3D. It added nothing to the movie.
I was expecting something very lavish and true to the book, scary and strange. But for the first half of the film I was really disappointed, it was tedious to be honest, nothing seemed to work properly, the inspired visuals in my head as I read the book with Molly just weren't there. It did get better in the second half, with the scary stuff working pretty well - still not as scary as they should have been though. The one brilliant visual effect was the effective use of whiteout to denote the Other Mother's lack of interest in the world beyond the apartment - that was impressive.
But overall, a disappointing movie. Perhaps I was expecting too much. And I have a sneaking feeling that it might be one to grow on me, time will tell. But the book's still so much better than anything I saw on the screen today.
