Paranorman (2012, PG)

This is a stop-motion animation movie about an 11-year old boy named Norman who can see and talk to ghosts and whose town has a little-believed curse from a centuries-dead witch.  His family doesn't understand him, his classmates at school either don't want to associate with him or they downright bully him, and the various ghosts in town are generally really nice and like him a lot. 

The visual style is the first noteworthy aspect of the film.  I like that they animated the film with stop-motion techniques rather than the computer graphics which are so popular in animation these days.  I honestly don't know which is less expensive to employ, but I know stop-motion has to be very tedious to record, and I find it brings a certain charm to the film... maybe it just reminds me of the Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer movie I used to watch when I was young, though the animation in Paranorman is more elaborate and smooth (looks less like wood).  The color pallet is pretty dark with reddish-browns and eerie greens which you don't see too often in animation outside of Invader Zim.  There are no parallel lines or right angles in this film which adds to a cartoony quality but also the feel of unease.  By all rights, this movie should be terrifying for children, but I don't think it's non-child friendly.  Yes, he encounters lots of dead and theoretically scary creatures, but they are almost always his best friends around; the living people are the cause of most of his angst and that's not supernatural at all.  He's a kid who's a different from everyone else and they pick on him for it.  He's a really good natured and intelligent (though not to a Jimmy Neutron level) boy such that, when I was yelling at the screen (as movie watchers are often wont to do) to not try to help the people that cause him trouble, he spoke some dialogue that made me ashamed of myself for that attitude.  He's a great role-model for the disenfranchised.  He's really sedated in attitude, not a lot of histrionic flailing like Courage the Cowardly Dog, and soft spoken, almost a Charlie Brown but more effectual. 

Related to the visual aesthetic is that no face was symmetrical.  Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee from Let Me In and The Road) is the most normal looking kid (aside from his straight-up hair that he can't tame, a'la Harry Potter in the books) but his nostrils are still noticeably not 9-and-3 o'clock positions.  His mom, voiced by Leslie Mann (Funny People, The Cable Guy), has a face so humble-looking and non-Hollywood that I was at first shocked by it.  Even Norman's popular cheerleader sister, voiced by the stunningly beautiful Anna Kendrick (the Twilight Series, Scott Pilgrim vs The World), has a non-Hollywood cartoon-pear-shaped proportion and non-existent chin.  The exaggerated and non-classically-beautiful features make people look more normal than in any other film, and add to the overall message of "we all look and act different and that's ok".  Alvin the bully in the film, voiced by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin from Superbad, and Red Mist from Kick Ass), was very well written and animated as a very real-world looking and acting bully, and his character added a lot to the personality and draw of the film.  Casey Afleck (Good Will Hunting, Ocean's Eleven) voiced the older brother of the overweight kid that befriends Norman, and the two brothers are two more of the characters that add the most charm to the film.

I liked the various bold choices made in this film (not all of which I will give away). What I didn't like as much was that the film was very frustrating at first because of how alienated and hopeless the main character felt. The story got waaay better near the end (in nearly every way), but it takes a certain investment from the viewer to get to that point, not just because it's frustrating to see the protagonist downtrodden but also in terms of pacing.  Also a lot of the comedy gags left me wanting, thought that might be a factor of age.  A friend of mine with an 8 year old tells me that he thought the movie was hilarious.  There was a female police officer that I'm pretty sure was intended to be voiced by Wanda Sykes but she was either too busy or not interested, and her purely comedy role fell a little flat in my mind.  To be fair though, there were a few gags that I found effective.

Overall I found the visual aesthetic to be the best part of the movie (especially impressive near the end), followed closely by the bold choices and noble messages of the film (most animated features have some sort of positive message, but I found this to be more poignant and socially relevant than most).  If you like Tim Burton's animated films (The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride) or the songs/animations of the modern gothic humorist Voltaire (not to be confused with the deceased philosopher) then this film is a must see.  If you have neither children nor a dark-cute/gothic taste, then this film doesn't have much to offer for you.  For me the film is the high end of 3.5 stars.  I like the movie more thinking back on it than I did when watching it, so keep that in mind.  I definitely would use it as a movie to play in the background at a Halloween party (in the past I rely on Sleepy Hollow for that).