The Movie Nut

Directed by: Henry Selick

Starring: (voices of) Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman. Keith David

Rating: PG (for some scary images and themes, may be too frightful for toddlers and small children)

Running time: 101 minutes

Best suited for: fantasy fans, Selick ("Nightmare Before Christmas," "James and the Giant Peach") fans, 3-D fans

Least suited for: those who like their animated fare without goosebumps

A friend of mine, walking out of the theater, said to me, "It's the 'Alice in Wonderland' of the new millennium."

We had just seen Henry Selick's "Coraline," an incredibly luminous, frightfully marvelous fairy tale of a film, like some waking nightmare that's too fascinating to seem fearful. It's a beautiful and (I mean this literally) breathtaking sort of film filled with stylistic visual splendors, a trip that feels part Disneyland thrill ride and part creaky old haunted house adventure at a roadside carnival.

I'll stop gushing long enough to advise that "Coraline" is probably not a film suited for younger children or those prone to nightmares.

Coraline is a bored, precocious child who finds a hidden door to an alternate universe. On the other side she discovers her own house with slight differences, but, more importantly, she finds Mom and Dad the way she'd like them to be—doting, playful and happy. Prepubescent nirvana. Love and home cooking fills the air, and Coraline is quickly enraptured.

Yet there's a small catch. Coraline's "other" mother and dad and the happy-go-lucky creatures of this joyful mirrorland have button eyes (as in coat button), and beneath the chipper veneer there's a hint of something a little . . . off. Especially when her "other" mother eagerly offers to exchange Coraline's eyes for buttons.

It's Coraline's "other" mom's slightly off-kilter familiarity, part whimsical and part eerie, that I suspect might torment younger kids who may not be ready to perceive an "other" mother—nicer yet subtly more sinister than their own. I mean, it is a kinda freaky notion.

Then again, I may just need years of therapy.

In either case, Coraline slowly catches on that in this beautiful "other" world, things really aren't what they appear to be. The problem is, it might be too late for Coraline to find her way back to her blissfully boring, "normal" life.

Kids in peril aren't new to Hollywood—come to think of it, the theme is one of our oldest cinematic staples—although "Coraline" is told with a fresh, inventive voice. Young Coraline's plucky and "chickempowered" in a delightfully positive way. She's Alice with a backbone.

"Coraline's" visual panache is astounding—the film uses 3D not as some 2-cent gimmick to extract an occasional squeal from the audience, but actually dares to immerse us in an alternate universe.

In a nocturnal garden scene, illuminated flowers blossom toward us in a syncopated dance that leaves one dizzy. Yeah, I've seen similar concepts in 2-D, pretty decent—but this is downright "trippy." Several times I suppressed the urge to reach out and pluck a glowing snapdragon, stopping myself only because I am, after all, a trained professional.

Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) finds a host of oddly endearing characters, in this world and the other, all of whom add a textured layer of shock and awe to her adventure.

I expect "Coraline" to become an instant classic, and those of us aware of Henry Selick's other films ("James and the Giant Peach" in particular) realize that the man is to stopmotion animation what Hayao Miyazaki ("Spirited Away") is to animé—a filmmaker at the top of his craft, unsurpassed in creating visions otherwise unfathomable in our mere ordinary brains.

In a word: genius.