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Coraline | 2009 | PG | - 4.5.2

A young girl (voiced by Dakota Fanning) joins her parents when they move to a new town to do research for their gardening book. Feeling bored as soon as they arrive, she begins exploring the old house they share with three other tenants, and when she finds a locked door she cannot resist opening it. Inside she finds a different reality. Also with Teri Hatcher, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Ian McShane, Carrie Genzel, Malcolm Foster Smith, John Hodgman and Robert Bailey Jr. Directed by Henry Selick. [1:41]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A woman on a stage wears only glitter shaped patches over her nipples and a thong, revealing breasts and buttocks along with bare abdomen, legs and back. A woman on stage wears a mermaid costume that reveals cleavage, bare abdomen, back and arms and a girl in the audience exclaims, "She's practically naked."

VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - A girl reaches into what looks like an over-sized taffy wrapper, she pulls out a ring, two hands from inside the wrapper accompany it, and as the girl pulls on the ring the hands extend to arms and eventually to two heads with mouths wide open, and they are shrieking for her to give it back; several dogs with bat wings attack the two heads and they let go of the ring.
 A girl climbs through a small door, a hand made of what looks like sewing needles chases her, grabs the door, scratches the door, is caught in the door and pops off the body it is attached to. A severed hand that looks like it is made of sewing needles lunges at a girl and grabs her by a necklace and drags her; the necklace breaks, the hand jumps on a boy knocking the boy into a deep well, and the boy catches on the side of the well and struggles to get up while the hand tries to make him fall.
 A cat jumps on the face of an insect woman with button eyes and rips the buttons off; the woman screams and throws a girl into a deep cobweb, crawls in after her and yells when she cannot find her.
 A woman with button eyes grabs a girl by the nose and throws her through a mirror, once inside the mirror the girl sees three sheet-covered mounds on a bed, she pulls back the sheet and finds three ghostly children (they float and are wispy and one has a tortured look on her face).
 A large, mechanized praying mantis carrying a man on its back walks toward a girl in a threatening manner, it falls into water, it sinks and we see the man's hand slowly covered by water while he yells.
 Plants in the ground creep toward a girl, the plants have teeth and snap, several grab her and wrap around her, and the girl frees herself and cuts the plants "heads" off with shears. Insects with stingers swarm toward a girl, she throws a bag at them, they are struck and fall to the ground motionless.
 A woman with button eyes gives a girl a box containing two buttons, a needle and thread, implying that the girl should stitch the buttons on her eyes; a man tells her, "It is so sharp that you hardly feel a thing." We hear that a boy with button eyes cannot speak and a woman with button eyes makes a gesture for him to smile in one scene; we see him in the next scene with stitches at the corners of his mouth, creating an awkward, Joker-like smile. Three ghostly children with button eyes talk about a woman "sewing buttons on their eyes" and "She ate up our lives."
 A button-eyed woman's form stretches out, her face becomes skeletal, and we see rib-like bones poking against the skin on her chest. A woman with button eyes changes as the movie progresses and eventually looks insect-like, with a skeletal, cracked bone-like face, insect legs and bony fingers. A man with button eyes stretches his bottom jaw way low and makes a remark about a woman that implies that she is dangerous.
 Many rats shoot what looks like fiberfill balls at a girl from cannons, she falls down and yelps and falls over a balcony landing hard on the ground below (she's OK). Large beetles and bugs move around a room, one blocks a small door, and another acts as a chair and holds a girl in a seated position. A man's circus performer costume becomes animated and speaks to a girl, and many rats pour out of it and skitter on the floor.
 A cat bites a small mouse and it morphs into a rat and spills what looks like saw dust onto the ground. A boy wearing a welder's helmet with a skeleton head painted on it speeds down a hill on a bike and scares a girl. We see many dogs with bat wings hanging upside down from a ceiling, and one opens its eyes (they glow red) and snarls at a girl.
 A girl runs through woods and stops when lightning flashes and she see someone on a bike on a hill nearby (she is scared). Rocks tumble down off a hill toward a girl who's walking on a path below, she is startled, picks up a rock and throws it and we hear a cat screech. The ground and a house and everything around a girl begin to become pixilated and break apart, and the girl runs.
 Accompanying opening credits and eerie (carnival-type) music we see what looks like a hand made of sewing needles working on a rag doll: it opens up a seam in the back, it cuts open the mouth and pulls out the stuffing (it resembles vomiting), and it pulls off the button eyes and sews button eyes back on (in the 3-D version the needle pokes out at the audience).
 A girl finds a boy's clothing hanging on a flagpole and fears the worst. A girl is frightened when she cannot find her mother and father.
 We see many stuffed dogs dressed in winged sweaters on shelves on a wall. A woman sews wings on a sweater for a dog that she says it "has not been feeling well" and we understand she is preparing for the dog to die.
 Two women on a stage are knocked down by falling stage sets and ladders (they are not seriously injured). A girl is snatched from an audience, she's swung around two women on trapezes and then she dangles from stage scaffolding.
 A girl sees a man and a woman who have buttons for eyes and she is startled. A girl is startled by a man dangling over a balcony and reaching toward her; the man jumps off the balcony and toward the ground where the girl stands holding a pair of gardening shears and his crotch comes close to the point of the shears. A girl is startled by dogs barking at a door when she rings the bell. A girl crawls through a dark tunnel that is lined with cobwebs. A girl follows a small mouse through a small door and a dark tunnel that leads into a house.
 Two women standing on cantilevered boards high over an audience unzip themselves and reveal two different women inside, who then jump off the boards, swing from trapezes and jump into a bucket of water on a stage below.
 A girl talks about "dead children." A cat makes a comment about a woman wanting something to eat and the cat asks a girl, "How do you taste?" We see a man and a woman covered with frost behind a mirror and they write in the frosted glass, "HELP ME." A woman reads tea leaves and exclaims that a girl will face great danger. A girl and her mother argue in many scenes with snide remarks and unpleasant admonishments.
 A cat walks toward a tree limb and disappears in a couple of scenes.
 A woman with button eyes offers a girl a chocolate covered beetle (the beetles move in a box), the girl refuses but the woman eats one (we hear crunching). Many bugs slither on a bathroom wall, a girl squishes several of them (we see goo on her hand), she turns on the tub faucet and brown water pours on her head. Dogs are shown to have human-like teeth. A woman with button eyes eats a key and later coughs it up. A man serves food that looks slimy and unappetizing. A girl gets a poison oak rash on her hand (we see red spots and she scratches).

LANGUAGE 2 - 1 mild scatological term, name-calling (mangy thing, fuss pot, selfish brat, witch, jerk-wad, creep, crazy, dingbats, wuss-puss, blind as a bat), 2 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - None.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Relocating, dousing, secrets, challenges, games, love, family, patience, understanding, loneliness, fear, fantasy, reality, magic, evil.

MESSAGE - The grass is not always greener on the other side.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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