Across the Universe

Strange things happen when a little girl opens a door to an alternate universe

When you walk through a door, what do you usually find on the other side? Another room, right? Or maybe the front step of your house. Nothing terribly unusual.

But when little Coraline crawls through a little door in her bedroom, what she finds on the other side is an alternate universe. In that alternate universe there are many things that are familiar — there’s an alternate version of her mother and an alternate version of her father. And, at first, Coraline likes the alternate version of her life a whole lot better.

Then Coraline realizes that her alternate parents — whom she calls Other Mother and Other Father — don’t want her to leave them. And worse, her real family may be in danger back in our world.

The story isn’t the only cool thing about Coraline. The movie was made with stop-motion animation, which uses puppets (moved very slowly and shot frame by frame) to create a magical look and feel. Plus, if you live near a theatre that can show movies in 3D (check Cineplex.com for locations), you can see this quirky adventure movie in pop-from-the-screen 3D splendour.

Oh, and if you think you recognize the voice of Coraline, that’s because it belongs to Dakota Fanning, the 14-year-old star of such movies as Charlotte’s Web, Dreamer and The Cat in the Hat.

Coraline opens February 6