ParaNorman Review

Norman is a unique little boy. He has a special gift that sets him apart from everyone else, even the members of his family. Norman sees ghosts. In fact he sees them everywhere all the time.

It turns out that this gift is both a blessing and a curse for young Norman. Some of his best friends are ghosts. His grandmother’s ghost still lives in the living room, and many of the ghosts he encounters on the streets are happy to see him and very friendly toward him. The bad part of his gift is that all the living people know he sees ghosts, but they don’t believe him. Instead, they think he is a very weird little boy and ridicule him endlessly. He’s just some strange kid who talks to himself and says and does weird things. He gets picked on a lot at school, and his family wants him to stop acting out all the time. Nobody understands poor Norman.

But Norman’s special gift soon will pay off in a big way. The town in which Norman lives, Blithe Hollow, was cursed centuries ago by a witch. If the witch’s needs are not meet every year, then she will raise the dead and exact revenge on the townspeople. On the eve of the curse, as magical storm clouds gather, Norman bands together with his sister, a school bully, the bully’s jock brother, and the only friend he has (a chubby kid who, like Norman, is subject to bullying) to end the town of it’s curse once and for all.

It’s a fantastic film. It’s full of heart, packs a powerful message, has tons of humor, and will leave you laughing and feeling good about life.

It must be hard to produce a kids film full of ghosts, zombies, witches, and all manner of other scary beasties. The balance between scary moments and fun moments must be spot on in order to keep from frightening a young audience. In fact, while watching a trailer for ParaNorman before a different film earlier this summer, I saw a little girl lose it. The trailer was cut with too much scary imagery, and the poor girl was not happy about it. But the film itself has great balance in those regards. Even when there’s really scary stuff going on, when zombies arise or there’s a room full of ghosts, it’s done in a way that makes you laugh.

Part of the joy of ParaNorman comes from a very cool animation style. ParaNorman uses a blend of really smooth stop-motion animation and computer generated effects. Combined with a great artistic design for its characters and environments, ParaNorman looks really good and maintains a playful and fun atmosphere.

Perhaps the best part of ParaNorman is the story. I just wrote a review for a different film in which I complained that only one character in an ensemble cast had a story arc and that this led to a boring film. Everyone in ParaNorman has a great story arc. The events of the film really affect all of the characters in positive ways. There are a lot of payoff moments throughout the film where we see a character “get it”, when they stop acting in a negative or hurtful way and start acting like better human beings (or ghosts, or whatevers).

The anti-bullying message in ParaNorman is done very well. It’s a major issue in the news today – how do we stop kids from bullying each other? We could start by showing each of our kids ParaNorman. We are all different, we’re all a little weird, sometimes even we don’t understand why we act the way we do. ParaNorman reminds us that that’s okay.

ParaNorman is one of the best films of 2012 so far. It is a beautiful film both in style and in story. Do yourself and your family a good thing and go see this film.

4.5 out of 5

Do you believe in ghosts? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter!