ParaNorman

Most helpful review ParaNorman

• This film was made only for me… probably

   

  By TheWatchman (491 reviews) from Suburbia , 23 Sep 2012

  [Highly rated reviewer]

  I just watched Paranorman – a film about a boy (called Norman by the way) who can talk to ghosts – and wondered who it was aimed at? The cinema was filled with children (ranging from three years old to early teens) and I came out of the auditorium wondering whether I was the only person in there who truly enjoyed it!
  
  Don’t think that just because this is a story about a boy who ‘sees dead people’ that it’s anything like the Sixth Sense. It more slightly cashes in on today’s obsession with zombies. We’ve seen zombie movies for adults, zombie movies with ‘infected’ people instead of walking corpses, romantic zombie movies, comedy zombie movies, zombie movies from the point of view of the undead themselves and now we have a kids’ one. It had to happen (and, after watching Paranorman, I say no bad thing).
  
  First of all, this is NOT Toy Story or Shrek. For a start it’s made from ‘claymation’ (think Wallace and Gromit) rather than all on computers. Plus, it might pass itself off as a childrens’ movie, but it seemed more like a homage to cheesy B-movie horror films of days gone by. There are tonnes of in-joke references to horror films that, unless you show your five-year-old Halloween and Return of the Living Dead instead of In the Night Garden, they will have no hope of ever picking up on.
  
  In these days of ‘target audiences’ where ‘Film A’ is meant for women and ‘Film B’ is meant for children and so on, watching Paranorman made me wonder whether the filmmakers just sat down, made a movie that they liked and never really gave much through to who it was meant for, hoping it would find an audience out there somewhere. A brave, if not that economical, decision.
  
  Bottom line: Paranorman was awesome, but then I’m a man who has grown on up on horror and zombie films. It has loads more heart and character development than other recent ‘kids’ movies, such as Brave, it looks visually stunning and it’s packed full of gags – I just wonder how many children will actually get?
  
  Afterthought: I was so caught up in enjoying this movie, I obviously didn’t get some concerns from parents. I’ve read some internet message boards where parents are annoyed at a kids’ movie bringing in issues of child death and (takes a deep breath) sexuality. Maybe if you don’t want Little Johnny asking you, “Daddy, why does HE have a ‘boyfriend?’” you really shouldn’t take your child to see this.
  
  Paranorman = possible future cult movie.
  
  5/5 stars.

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