Zombos Says: Good
The animation, direction, and visual artistry of ParaNorman are exuberantly delivered; the story, not so much. Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee) sees and talks to ghosts, including his grandma (Elaine Stritch) who sits and knits on the living room couch. This peculiar gift, of course, has ostracized him from the kids at school, the neighbors, his shallow sister (Anna Kendrick), and even his parents (Leslie Mann and Jeff Garlin). The only kid in the small town of Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts, who likes being with Norman is Neil (Tucker Albrizzi), your script-standard ostracized fat kid sidekick. Bullying the both of them is dull-witted but big-fisted Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).
Putting the bully on all of them, and the rest of the townsfolk, is a 300 year-old witch who raises from the dead the people who condemned her, including Judge Hopkins (Bernard Hill). Norman tries to ignore the horrific visions he's having of the coming doom, but his eccentric, lumber jack of an uncle, Prenderghast (John Goodman), insists he must be prepared to stop the witch by going to her grave and reading from a special book. His uncle explains he has done this every year on the anniversary of the witch's execution to keep her quiet for another year. This time around, though, his death presents something of a problem.
It also presents the funniest scene when Norman must release the book from his, now ripe, uncle's death grip. The gyrations involved are delightfully insensitive and Three-Stooges-crazy. There's another sublime moment of innuendo when the zombies, fresh from the grave, enter town. It involves a vending machine, the approaching zombies, a hungry man, and a bag of greasy chips that gets stuck. I'd have done the same thing. I think we all would have. These moments come and go, and in-between is a Halloween-perfect palette of colors, scenery, and PG-sinister dangers slowed by artistically lazy moments where the dialog reaches for, but misses, its point, the main characters stand idle while their urgency continues, and the fulfillment of lesser moments are lacklustre, making them even more noticeable when compared to the magical promise around them.
Wikipedia mentions this is the first stop-motion movie to use a 3D color printer to make the characters' faces. While that may be impressive from the production standpoint, it's the unflattering body shapes of the characters that drew my attention. Done with wit and a wink they are satirically revealing of the personality each character possesses.
Also impressive is the ending to die for, which may be too intense for very young kids. It crackles with energy bolts driven by rage, resentment coming from estrangement, and lost innocence. The book is the key, and yet it's not the powerful spellbook that Norman, and we, expect it to be. Neither is the witch. Neither are the zombies.
With a little more charm and a little more guile in the story, ParaNorman would have been, at the least, the male version of Coraline. Without them, it's like drinking Chteau Margaux 1995 from a plastic cup: the experience just isn't complete.
