ParaNorman ☆☆☆☆½

This is the first time in a looooong time that I’ve watched an animation not done by Disney and said ‘that was excellent’. And this was excellent. Truly.

The story follows Norman Babcock, an eleven year old living in a small town in Massachusetts who has an unusual gift. Norman can see and converse with ghosts. His family and the whole town know this, or at least they know that Norman ‘believes’ he can see them. And for this Norman is bullied, ignored, shouted at, and generally mistreated. Its actually very sad and any kid who has ever been bullied will identify with Norman.

However Norman’s ‘gift’ means one important thing – he has a Destiny. This destiny is relayed to him by a crazy old guy called Pendergast who can also see ghosts, so unsurprisingly Norman is reticent to fulfil said destiny which is to go to the grave of a witch who cursed the townsfolk who sent her to her death 300 years ago, and read a book on the anniversary of her death.

But of course things aren’t going to go smoothly for Norman and he and his new friend Neil, his sister, Neil’s brother, and bully Alvin have to battle zombies and crazy and murderous townsfolk before the night is done.

So I’m going to review this with the voice cast going first, the story second, and then the animation to round it off, so here goes with the voice cast.

Genuinely talented bunch of voices in here. You have Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In, The Road) as Norman, whose youthful tones are not lost but serve to really power the animation, his voice really brings Norman to life. Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect, Up In The Air) finds her inner cheerleader as Norman’s older sister, fawning over Neil’s older brother, and trying to work out her little brother. The older brother is played by Casey Affleck, which I didn’t pick up at all, probably because I wasn’t expecting a 30 something year old to be voicing a teenage beefcake.

Jeff Garlin who voiced Norman’s father is no stranger to voice work, having been part of Pixar’s Cars and Wall-E, and I love how exasperated he can make his voice sound in such a quiet way. Leslie Mann who is more famous for being in anything her husband makes (she is the wife of Judd Apatow who made Knocked Up etc), was again unrecognisable, but that may have been because I was more fascinated with how the mother was animated than her tone of voice.

Rounding out the cast are the voices of Pendergast (John Goodman), zombie leader (Bernard Hill), Alvin the Bully (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and finally little Neil who is voiced by a young actor I do not know of called Tucker Albrizzi.

This actually moves me on nicely to reviewing the story, because Neil was definitely my favourite character. He was this chubby kid who is also picked on, but for a plethora of reasons that he outlines to Norman without a trace of anger or resentment, just a calm acceptance of his fate. I just wanted to squeeze his animated chubbiness, especially when he shows up to Norman’s house wearing a hockey mask and is just stood there, like a mini Michael Myers. Which is EXACTLY the creators intention.

This wasn’t an animation that dumbed down any dialogue or lessened the scariness to benefit the smallest people. If I had been seven years old, or even eleven, I would have been terrified. Actually if I had been in a cinema on my own I probably would have been scared, watching something on your laptop in the daylight does take away the atmosphere.

The speech was fabulous, intelligent and funny, whilst also kind of breaking your heart at times. Norman’s facial expressions were beautiful, he does this tiny smile that real people do when they have been complimented but have never let themselves believe anything about them is good.

The animation overall was stunning. I love stop-motion and this really captured the heart and soul of the story and characters. It allowed the animators to create extreme looking persons to reflect their characteristics, or just to put a huge bum on a cheerleader. Visually arresting I guess you could say, especially the final big sequence.

I’ve read reviews that say this is good but not as good as Coraline, but then again these films are exploring two different kinds of dark, but both are scary. The difference is ParaNorman goes for the funny too, and I enjoyed the humour being put out there because its there to stop the kids freaking out. It is childish humour, and you know we all like to see the bully hide behind the kid he’s been picking on sometimes, its poetic justice and quite funny.

Of course the thing to always remember about my reviews is this is just my own humble opinion. Raising expectations never does anyone any good, so don’t take my word that this is funny, scary and beautifully animated, go watch it and decide for yourself.