Movie Review: ParaNorman

Blurb: From the makers of Coraline comes the story of Norman, a boy who must use his special powers to save his town from a centuries-old curse. In addition to spooky zombies, he'll also have to take on unpredictable ghosts, wily witches and, worst, of all, clueless grown-ups. But this young ghoul whisperer will soon find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits. Featuring the voice talents of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin and John Goodman, it's a frightfully funny tale for the whole family.

Review: This is definitely one of the Halloween season's better offerings. It is cute enough for littler kids, scary enough for tweens and fun enough for the adults to enjoy.

Norman is absolutely adorable and he sees dead people.

It doesn't make him very popular either.

What makes this movie worth the cost of the rental or even the cost to own it, are the characters. Like Coraline, there's a wide array of colorful people in Norman's life, friends, family and ghosts. Norman's grandmother was one of the fun ghosts and the hummus tossing Neil was a cute friend.

But back to the story.

Norman has to break the Witch's curse or some scary things will come back from the dead. The thing is, some of the colonial ghosts aren't really scary, though they do get some shock value points when they come crawling out of the ground.

The thing is, this movie comes with a moral that can be applied to our lives today. You can't condemn things that you don't understand, just because you don't understand them. That's the main reason why the witches were tried in Salem and in England.

The film passes this moral along without being too preachy and still being a bit scary and fun.

Coraline had a better storyline overall, but that has to do with the Neil Gaiman factor, but Paranorman is definitely a fun scary kids flick that you won't mind watching a few times over.

The ending is sad and sweet. It does the reverse of Pixar, which opens with a "make you sad" scene.

Definitely a film worth seeing, it is a shame the DVD had to come out at Christmas because the scare factor is somewhat diminished as a result.