Super Frat

ParaNorman is a harmless and fairly entertaining animated flick about a boy that can see ghost and has to save his town from zombies.  Featuring the voices of John Goodman, Jeff Garlin, Casey Affleck, Leslie Mann, Anna Kendrick, Alex Borstein and many others.  It’s not quite as sharp as Monster House or as endearing, as say, Coraline, but it’s a fairly solid story.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where ParaNorman falls short without giving out spoilers, but it’s a very basic story.  You never really get very deep into the characters and most of them are pretty two-dimensional.  Feels more like a TV show.  The movie is sort of open to a sequel, perhaps that would up the ante somewhat.  Once you get toward the end, you realize that most of the action is predicated on a misunderstanding that takes up a good chunk of the second act.

Also, Norman’s not all THAT freaky and yet, the audience is beaten over the head with his “freak” label.  We get it, he’s an outsider.  Unfortunately, the script probably would’ve had more places to go if Norman wasn’t such an outsider.  Shared histories with just a few of the characters would’ve given their actions more weight.  As it stands, a lot of the movie feels like none of the characters really know each other all that well.

Still, the movie looks good, the pacing isn’t bad and I found myself enjoying most of the scenes.  Casey Affleck’s character nearly steals the whole show with a joke at the end.  It’s probably more of a rental, but wouldn’t be a bad movie to take the kids.  If you’re a zombie purist, however, I wouldn’t see the bar too high.

I give ParaNorman 5 and a half keggers out of ten.  Just slightly above average.