Mirrormask

Mirrormask is a movie laden w/ the Dave McKean touch. The visuals are prolly the main draw for anyone not already a fan of Neil Gaiman. Spoilers ahead.

The main storyline isn't something unfamiliar: Teenage Helena tries to save the good/light queen and the dreamland by recovering a charm called the Mirrormask, else the dark queen will prevail in having her Shadows overrun everything. Both queens resemble Helena's suddenly-ill mother, and Helena puts guilt on herself in the beginning for wishing her mother dead when they had a fight about Helena wanting to leave the family business (circus). Helena is first pulled into this dreamland that resembles her drawings pasted all over her bedroom wall when she wakes up in the night to music outside, and when she goes out to investigate, the shadows envelope 2 performers while the 3rd, Valentine, manages to pull her through a door to safety. From there, Helena learns that she resembles the dark princess who had run away to the light Queen's palace, got hold of the Mirrormask, and switched places with the real Helena. So Valentine accompanies Helena to find the Mirrormask and restore everything to normal.

The only line I remember laughing at is when a fairly muddled sphinx stops a desperate Valentine from going any further and after a quick battle of riddles, Valentine points and yells, "Look! An idiot!" The sphinx looks in the pointed direction "Where?" and when he looks back, Valentine was gone.