Paranorman (2012)

 To put this as simply as possible, there seems to be a surge of movies involving zombies and the end of the world and all that kind of stuff at the moment. Therefore, it was only going to be a matter of time before this genre moved out of the scary horror movie world and into the animation category to scare and impress the kids as well as the adults. This attempt to create a boundary between kids' movies and the zombie apocalypse follows Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a kid who has never quite fitted in at school, who is the oddball in his family and who seems destined to be perpetually alone. This seclusion, however, may not be entirely unfounded as Norman can see dead people (insert 'Sixth Sense' quote here). Whilst for the majority of his life this 'skill' has set him apart from the rest of his community, it becomes conveniently useful when he and his newly found 'friends' (including Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck and Christopher Mintz-Plasse) must save their town from the zombies that have been woken from the dead by some old witches curse that has haunted the town for centuries.

 To start with, the animation is very clever and creative. The decision to go down a road that makes the film almost appear to be a stop-motion animation film was one that I was oddly impressed with. It gives the film a very individual look, helping to separate it from previous animated movies and it also stylistically fits very well with the story. As well as this, the final few scenes are incredibly well animated and really emphasise the fantastical element of this part of the storyline (that sentence will become clearer should you decide to watch the film). Overall, the animation team have done a really good job with giving this film a individual feel as well as allowing the style of animation to become part of the story.

 All of the parts within the film have been cast well, with each actor or actress bringing something to the character. Whilst it is probably pretty difficult to voice an animated character badly (there is, after all, very little acting involved in a job where you're not even on screen yourself), it is at least an achievement to say that all of the actors contributed to the film and each character is an individual that is reflected in the acting choices.

 To say that this film is a masterpiece of the animation genre would be a gross over statement. It is nothing special and I feel any originality it may have had has now been overshadowed by the unfortunate release of 'Frankenteen' at roughly the same sort of time (another animated movie about the same sort of thing). However, it is still a good film with both funny and moving moments that is appropriate to watch with kids and won't scare the living crap out of them.