I don't know Coraline (Yet) but I do know Neil Gaiman, and I agree that length can really shoot his works in the foot, but I believe that it's generally intentional. Neil Gaiman loves stories, and sometime (to his detriment too) puts more emphasis on the mythological and meta-fictional rather then entertainment. Don't get me wrong, he's a great author, but he tries a little to hard to seem deep, and from what I know about Coraline, there's a climax, and then there's more shit after what would be the regular story, then another climax, it might be clever, but it's not helpful to the story. Yeah, I'll probably pick this up soon.
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Personally, I have to agree. I really loved the movie once things picked up. But it felt like we were spending too much time seeing the "goofy" side characters (who I didn't like, never having been a fan of that type of eccentric cartoon humor in the first place), and Coraline's fantasy world.
I like character, yes, but I like plot. And once the plot picks up, it just gets awesome. I love the characters of Coraline and Wybie and their relationship. I love the character designs and animation - each frame just shows great personality, with amazingly rendered poses and facial expressions. And the plot is just gripping the instant the first hints of evil are dropped.
But that's the problem. Until that happens, all you have is excellent animation and character interactions, of which I only found the Coraline + Wybie interactions to be fun. Pacing, pacing...
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I agree with it seeming a bit stretched (indeed the original story is a novella, rather than a full length novel, and Wybie didn't exist in the book: I remember wondering when I first heard it was being made into a film I did wodner how they were going to MAKE IT movie length) but I also feel that they nessecarily didn't make it any longer than it had to be (well... maybe a little bit, I might have removed a couple of portions myself, but their existence wasn't to the film's detriment, at least not from my perspective and obviously Your Mileage May Vary).
I wonder if anything faster wouldn't have seemed a little rushed? I disagree with the above commentor that Coraline feels disjointed by having so many climaxes, because to me it felt like a steady build up (with each "climax" being more powerful than the last, well timed lulls in the action, and changes in mood) There was a general pervading sense of "wrongness" through the whole plot, and I feel that would've seemed a bit more forced if the story progressed any faster.
I found Coraline as a character to be... well, selfish, whiney and bratty, which irritated me because I was pretty sure I was meant to be feeling empathy for her (calling somebody "Why were you born" for example... Is it just me that thinks that was a bit overly cruel? Because for me, that pushed her over the line from somebody who was an understandably grumpy and neglected ten year old -as kids sometimes are- with every right to be a little hacked off with her situation, into somebody being quite spiteful and petty). Though I appreciate that's the way she was intended to be portrayed so we cold see her taking responsibility for herself and learning later on, and she did show her true colours as the movie went on, so I rooted for her to win, nonetheless. Generally I found Wybie and his cat to be far more interesting characters.
Now as for it being something to look at... As a demonstration of 3D Stop motion animation, this movie is a fantastic example of an art form which sometimes seems to be being left in the dust. You have to hand it to those animators with all their sleepless nights, the set designers with their huge to-scale buildings, the woman who hand knitted all those tiny little pairs of clothes... I felt like there was enough detail and creativity in each of the scenes and designs to be striking, but not enough to seem retentive and picky, or crowded, such as in another motion film released recently. I think this is why the film doesn't seem so rushed to me. Just imagine the Other Garden scene, and the Scotty Dog cinema scene, and the insects-as-furniture scene, and the ghost children scene, and Coraline walking around the world. They were all detailed, and well crafted scenes... Now imagine all of those different scenes crammed together in a forty minute film. It would've felt very crowded, to me... pf course, I guess they could've taken bits out there, but they were all rather lvoely scenes. if I were an animator (which I'm not, yet) it'd really hurt to see any of those taken out.
Yes, the original work was a novella - much shorter. There was essentially zero padding and what didn't contribute to the plot was always meant to develop Coraline's immature and bitter, but rather subdued, personality.
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I agree about Coraline's portrayal in the film. In the original novella, she was much more quiet, thoughtful, pleasant, and clever. Plus, in the end, she didn't walk around knowing that the Other Mother was out to get her, having to be saved by a boy. She maintained her self-sufficiency and tricked the Other Mother's hand into falling into the well. A lot more likeable. I remember being able to relate to her.
As for movie Coraline, I just remember wanting to plug my ears whenever she acted like a Jerkass wangsty brat.
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A review of the film
Coraline is a good children's movie. It is creepy, its characters are engaging, and it has a message that is straightforward but neither heavy-handed nor condescending. Coraline's only problem is that it feels rather stretched, like the writers were taking a simple, short story and padding it out to feature length. I haven't read the original novel, so I don't know if this was simply a result of the book being too short, or the book having a similar issue which transferred over to the big screen.
The story begins with Coraline, bored and dissatisfied with her parents and new neighbourhood, she finds herself drawn to another World where everything appears to be marvellous, and the button-eyed locals, accommodating. The viewer immediately realises that this too-good-to-be-true world will not last and that sooner or later, its doll-eyed denizens will drop the facade and show their evil side. But then we have to wait for it. And wait and wait and wait. Coraline keeps going to new, ever more exciting, beautiful locations - but they feel like distractions. Even though I liked the various, colourful support characters like Spink, Forcible, and Mr Bobinsky, they seemed to exist purely to delay the inevitable penny-dropping scene.
I think Coraline would have been an excellent film had it existed as a much shorter piece. Many characters and their respective Plot Coupons serve an ancillary role to the overall theme, so I'd rather the writers had just cut them out completely and get to the creepy, exciting climax. As it stands, Coraline manages to be a good film, if a little frustrating.