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88ParaNorman is probably the year's most visually dazzling movie so far, and the stunning climax centering on an 11-year-old witch (Jodelle Ferland) is too good to spoil.
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75My advice? Just go with ParaNorman. There's magic in it.
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75The story may be thin, but the project, a feat of stop-motion animation, is made with generous care by the same impressive LAIKA studio artists who conjured up the gorgeous "Coraline."
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50ParaNorman is supposedly for kids, but it's really aimed at their snarky older brothers, and it illustrates the limits of the new family creepshows.
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78Laika's stop-motion animation is every bit as inspired here as it was in their rightfully lauded "Coraline," and the storyline never wavers from its boneyard-deep message: Being different from others is a good – nay, great – thing, no matter how many villagers (or zombies) are after you.
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75This wryly funny take on the classic ghost story, with its tributes to horror thrillers from "Halloween" to "Friday the 13th" and rich cast of characters, has distinctive Tim Burton-esque visuals, and a welcome dearth of potty humor.
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63None of this is all that engaging. But the art design of the movie makes up for the slack story.
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100It's freakishly funny, suddenly tender, gleefully macabre, genuinely scary, and full of a moral – fear turns weak people into bullies – which is dosed out so gently that it never tastes like medicine.
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83The overall cheekiness of the film far outweighs its preachy moments. For the most part, it's a brisk, funny and engaging movie that does genuinely exciting things with little bits of string and wire and such.
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88Norman is the "freak" bullied and ostracized and otherwise degraded by the alive-and-well crowd. Such is the outcast fate of most heroes in the best children's tales. And ParaNorman, a ghoulishly delightful exercise in stop-motion animation, is a very good children's tale indeed.
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75What works about ParaNorman is its subtle interweave of the stoical and the heroic. The voice work is inspired, without a lot of theatrical flourish. The low-key musical score by Jon Brion, one of the year's best, teases out the macabre humor in each new challenge faced by Norman.
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90Far more than Norman's adventure, which takes him from home to a cemetery and deep into his town's history, what pulls you in, quickening your pulse and widening your eyes, are the myriad visual enchantments - from the rich, nubby tactility of his clothes to the skull-and-bones adorning his bedroom wallpaper.
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40The 12-year-old boys who go to see ParaNorman - and who are the only ones who might enjoy it - should double up on the sugary treats to stay awake during this gorgeous-looking but zombi-fied stop-motion animated creep show. It's as slow as a corpse, and half as interesting.
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88It's not warm and fuzzy, but for kids who comprehended "Coraline" and babysitters who savored "The Corpse Bride," this stop-motion marvel from some of the same animators is like an early Halloween treat.
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80In ParaNorman, Butler, Fell and company have crafted a refreshingly enjoyable bit of family entertainment. In the process, they've also made the best animated film to hit theaters so far this year.
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50ParaNorman is an amusing but only fitfully involving animated caper.
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80As creepy as it is fun, and it's plenty of both, ParaNorman will delight fans of old-time horror movies.
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80Sensitive parents shouldn't fret; this is the kind of grim fairy tale, equal parts midnight-movie macabre and family-round-the-hearth compassionate, that scars in all the right ways.
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80Few movies so taken with death have felt so rudely alive as ParaNorman, the latest handcrafted marvel from the stop-motion artists at Laika ("Coraline").
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67It plays with comedy and drama, but keeps failing to commit to one or the other.
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80It may be the most fun you'll have with ghosts and zombies all year.
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75The movie's erratic pleasures are like its ghosts; now you see them, now you don't.
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67Unlike the polished universe of Pixar's "Brave" or countless other recent CGI efforts, ParaNorman maintains a delicate, handcrafted look that underscores its ideas.
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60Ingenious and wonderfully detailed, though better in its imaginative horror than its slightly too-broad comic knockabout. It's not quite on the level of Coraline, but it's proper summer fun with some dark delights.
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75As for Butler's screenplay, it's less beguiling than preachy.
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60It's a likable scary story – with hints of Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg.
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40ParaNorman is easily one of the most charming, imaginative and quirky comedies to come out of Laika Entertainment (Coraline), but for all its cleverness and urbane wit, it's in no way appropriate for kids.
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100ParaNorman is a micro-sized masterpiece that wears its heart (and its half-eaten brains) on its sleeve.
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Sep 1, 201260Gorgeous animation and inspired set design help patch over a lacklustre script. The horror hardcore will enjoy playing spot the homage.
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Aug 18, 201270In the end, perhaps the most touching quality of this film is its low-key, but sensitively rendered portrait of a young, awkward child who hasn't quite managed to figure his way out in the world yet.
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Aug 16, 201275A colorfully macabre stop-motion animation comedy that embraces the sociopolitical allegories of George A. Romero's zombie pictures and reworks them into a feature-length episode of "Scooby-Doo."
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Aug 14, 201270Butler called it "John Carpenter meets John Hughes," and that does just about sum ParaNorman up, though the actual math still feels a little fuzzy.
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Aug 12, 201263The tagline for the film reads "You Don't Become a Hero by Being Normal," and the film mostly lives up to that assertion, but only up to a point.