ParaNorman Reviews

Esta es de esas películas que me gustaría que hubiesen sido más relevantes en su momento y estoy seguro de que en unos años estará valorada como una película de culto. Hasta donde sé fue un fracaso comercial, pero después de verla no puedo pensar que esto fue más que nada por no tener el respaldo de una empresa gigantesca en la industria para publicitarla.
Me parece una excelente opción para niños de 6 años en adelante, pero sobretodo se la recomiendo a entusiastas de la animación y en especial del Stop Motion.

It's a very nice family movie.
It starts out as a comedy, but gradually it goes into something deeper.
The crazy designs are so ugly that they are great and very well detailed.
It has an excellent flavor, and the atmosphere is very evolving.

Discounting the crowd-dividing Brave, 2012 was indisputably one of the great years in animation. It represented a number of marvelous animated films including Wreck-It Ralph, Frankenweenie, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, and Rise of the Guardians. Among the great animated films released in 2012 was ParaNorman; stopmotion studio Laika's second film, after Coraline. And it's exactly what one would expect from the studio. Gorgeous animation, creepy story, refreshingly mature substance, and loads of entertainment.

Recalling 1999's The Sixth Sense, ParaNorman is about a boy named Norman who sees dead people. He talks with them all the time (much to the ridicule of his friends and family). But it turns out that Norman's abilities may be necessary in order to prevent his hometown from being destroyed by a resurrected witch with a curse that just won't die.

Like Coraline, ParaNorman is not for young children. It's not as adult, nor as frightening as Coraline, but nonetheless, children are likely to be frightened by much of what occurs in ParaNorman. On top of that, there is some surprisingly adult content here. But all of this works as a summation of why Laika's films are so important and delightful. This is a studio that really understands what animation is as an art form, and they use it to create films that are often better for adults than their kids. The boundaries in Laika's films are pushed much farther than they are in even Pixar movies, which are ideal for adult viewing, but great for kids as well. Films like Coraline and ParaNorman would send most children running from the room with tears streaming down their face. Considering the subject matter related to these films, that's a sure sign the material is working.

Though in a way, it's almost a shame that ParaNorman wasn't more kid-friendly, because there are some great messages here. ParaNorman covers loss, bullying, individualism all in one entertaining package. As odd as it is to say about a zombie movie, ParaNorman is surprisingly wholesome.

ParaNorman skews older in its humor as well. There are gags that any kids in the audience will enjoy, but many of them are a bit more mature. Unfortunately, there's definitely some low brow humor that feels beneath the Laika standards (some of it is even more juvenile than that seen in Laika's The Boxtrolls), but there's not enough of that to really hurt the viewing experience.

The animation is beautiful, but we would expect nothing less. The character designs are really fun too, but the strength in their writing is what really brings them to life. Norman is another one of Laika's successful child protagonists. He's likable and believable as a character, but he has depth that goes beyond your typical animated protagonist. Norman's mother is another surprisingly well-written character.

Likewise, the voice cast is very accomplished in their performances here. Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jodelle Ferland, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kenderick, Casey Affleck, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Hill, Tempesst Bledsoe, and John Goodman make up a fantastic ensemble of lively characters that engage and light up and the screen.

Jon Brion's score, while not nearly as inventive as the film it inhabits (nor other Laika scores by Bruno Coulais and Dario Marianelli), suffices in it's general spookiness and occasionally inspired instrumentation. It works for the film, though I really do question the frequent use of an electric bass which seems dreadfully out of place at times.

Filled with colorful characters and intelligent writing, ParaNorman is a delight on every level. It has many laughs and wacky visuals, but what really brings ParaNorman to the heights of its Laika siblings is its big heart. There are many meaningful scenes here (Norman's confrontation with the witch near the end is riveting), and these really do elevate the picture. I wouldn't suggest it for the young, but ParaNorman is superior entertainment for teens on up.

Before jumping into conclusions about the title, it is highly important to note that ParaNorman is not intentionally a children’s adaptation of the Paranormal Activity franchise. The title is merely a reference to the series and is different in almost every way. When it comes to animated children’s films with a dark tone, there are boundaries that must be met in order for them to be suitable for their target audience. ParaNorman may not provide anything new that we haven’t seen before in animated comedy-horrors but it is still a film with absolutely stunning effects and is an awful lot of fun for all audiences to enjoy.


From the studio that bought us the horrifying yet beautiful stop-motion feature Coraline in 2009, ParaNorman contains many roots of those same breath-taking visuals that send us on an eerie, surreal adventure. Its deliberately mature visual approach is an attempt to progress to an even higher level of children’s horror that we hadn’t seen before. It still remains an incredibly fun film but it slightly suffers from a vital piece. As well as being a children’s horror, ParaNorman is supposedly a comedy that is supposed to set their minds at ease for the scares that are seen on screen. It slightly lacks the comical humour that makes a comedy-horror, even aimed for children, great. However, ParaNorman surprisingly engaged the audience on an emotional ride that will melt hearts.


Kodi Smit-McPhee is another fantastic child actor of this generation who has been dragged into the world of animation. In this film, he voices protagonist Norman Babcock, a young boy who communicates with the dead. You could look at this character and think that he is a parody of Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense but Norman takes his supernatural abilities to a new level and is very much a character on his own. Norman’s lack of friends makes his ability to see the dead friendly for kids and is seen as a gift, as opposed to a curse. He is still an extremely likable protagonist with a big, brave heart and is bound to win over audiences of all ages.


Supporting characters consisted of a mixture between humans and supernatural forces. Tucker Albrizzi voiced Norman’s friend Neil Downe, Anna Kendrick as Courtney Babcock, Norman’s elder sister and Jeff Garlin and Leslie Mann as Norman and Courtney’s parents. These characters create a sense of not only modern society in ParaNorman but also innocence by feeling the wrath of these zombies and ghosts. In addition, Christopher Mintz-Plasse goes down a different route, not only into animation but character type. He has usually portrayed a young geeky kid in the past but he plays the school bully Alvin in a very comical, humorously idiotic manner. In addition, in an interesting but unexpected move, Neil Downe’s older brother Mitch becomes the first openly homosexual character displayed in a children’s animated film.


Of course like most animated films, ParaNorman is strong in terms of visual effects and is a heap of fun. Furthermore, despite its predictable climax it has strong character development. In some ways, ParaNorman is “the Coraline of 2012” due to its dark visual approach but when comparing the two, ParaNorman only slightly lacks the charm and the heart that was so breath-taking in Coraline. Nevertheless, for kids and adults to sit down and enjoy, especially during the Halloween season, ParaNorman is a high recommendation.

I wasn't really planning to see this flick but since it was the end of the holiday for Nick (my step-son), we went one last time to the theater and chose this flick. Eventually, I thought it was a pretty good stop-motion feature but, to be honest, it was still missing something in my opinion. It figures that it was made by Laika, the studio which made 'Coraline' a few years back. I mean, both movies were visually really impressive and really amazing to watch but both movies also didn't really convince me as far as the story was concerned. Basically, it was just some kind of (better) version of ' The Sixth sense' but not much more than that, I'm afraid. I mean, it was entertaining enough but the whole thing about the weird kid being bullied by everbody but, at the end, manages to save the city from the zombies and becomes a hero, not only it was rather unoriginal and predictable, but this ending was also actually a stepdown after following the darker satiric tone they displayed before. It is like the curse of this witch, it was rather pedestrian in my opinion. Still, I liked this movie. Indeed, the characters were pretty awesome, it looked awesome and there were here and there some hilarious scenes. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I really enjoyed this movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.