Where the Wild Things Are

2010 was a great year for melancholy films (A SINGLE MAN being another great film). Where the Wild Things Are captured all of the uncertainty, mood swings, and wild imagination of being young.

The movie I purchased was destined to my uncle's house, and the item never arrived.. I tried to contact someone at Amazon but it was impossible. It said it did arrive but my uncle never got it, so I'm kind of still waiting for it..

There are many well written reviews that I agree with on Amazon.com regarding: 1) the unexplicable intense rage and anger from the very outset, 2)completely unacceptable behavior of the boy towards his kind and caring mother, 3)lack of character development for the monsters (which obviously were a reflexion of the boys emotional issues), 4)lack of resolution between the monsters or the boy and his mother. It has it's artistic moments, and I can tolerate a lack of true plot when my senses are emotions are deeply involved, however at 40 minutes, I wanted the movie to just end. I would not show it to children and I would not recommend it to friends. For those who can relate because of their own deep emotional problems, a movie like this only adds fuel to your rage and does not help you come to closure. I want my 2 hours back and I'm not going to write any more on this subject so that it doesn't waste anymore of my time.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RRYKV8J84S3Q1 My review of Where The Wild Things Are on Blu-Ray

I love this book, but I was curious as to how they were going to fill 90 minutes on screen. I found out how ... they made up a lot of really boring child angst garbage and turned this classic funny kids book into some warped exploration of how divorce effects kids. Who cares? Certainly not my 9 year old who kept wondering when the monsters were going to be entertaining and funny. I sat in that movie theater just squirming in my seat wanting the dumb thing to hurry up and be over! It was excruciating. The special effects were horrendous, I could have done better with my cell phone. And as far as the plot itself, there is no resolution, it just peters out there at the end and you get no answers to any of your questions, but on the positive side, you just don't care anyway.

The words of this book would barely fit on a few pages. As a result the movie just didn't work too well. I get the anger issues between the boy and his favorite monster but other than that this really wasn't terribly interesting. MY GRADE: C minus to C.

Purchased this to share with my grandchildren; all but the two eldest, 14 and 18, went to bed. I think they stayed up so Grandma would not be alone. From the very beginning; it was bad. I had looked forward to it as I had read the book over and over to my children (they all went to bed, too) Never should have purchsed it; just held on to the good memories of reading and enjoying. Now, I have to get the bad movie memory out of my head!!!

I was raised in the 70's but never read this book, as far as I can remember. I know it was very popular and was looking forward to seeing it with my 6 yr old son. The first few minutes of Max snarling and chasing after this dog with a fork, only to catch it and appear to maul it was a little intense, and set the tone for the rest of the movie. I was never filled with so much frustration or anger like Max. I can't think of many of my friends who were, so I really cannot relate at all to him. In my day, if you were a kid that defied your parents, destroyed things, screamed at and bit your parents, that wasn't common or accepted. You got your butt straightened out, and FAST. If you were smart, you learned respect and didn't do that again. If you weren't so smart or had some chemical imbalance, you probably couldn't understand your parents, and probably still can't today. In any case, to me, this movie was about a disturbed boy in what seems like a nice home, better than most have. He acts out, destroys things and runs away from home when his mom is asking why he bit her. Yeah, how dare she ask! He sails away to an island with a bunch of always-sad, dysfunctional monsters. They are a "family" but they constantly fight and ruin each others' lives, destroy each others' home, rip each others' arms off, stuff like that. Perfectly normal so far. Max lies to them, then gets caught in that lie which upsets the herd. He doesn't feel comfortable there anymore so he goes back home to have his mom kiss his butt and make him food, which she gladly does. While the stitches from Max biting her are healing, I'm sure. Sorry, but this movie made me feel almost depressed and hollow. I really didn't like the kid, or the "message" I got from the story. My son really didn't like it, talked about how bad the kid was and how he made a lot of bad choices, and then asked to go bike riding after an hour or so. I supposed if you were like Max, or if you have a wild thing as a kid, you can relate. Maybe if you read the book, which I didn't, you might like it to. To see the movie on it's own, I can't think of many people that would walk away thinking this was anything other than crap.

I really enjoyed this book as a child, and the cartoon adaptation that had "The Night Kitchen" and several other short stories as well. That being said, I did not particularly enjoy this version. Max, having angered his mother and also being up to no good all day, runs away from home and finds a sailboat that brings him to a different land. Here in this land, he is made King of the things and at first all is happy. One of the things, Carol, is eerily similar in attitude to Max. He is full of rage and doesn't deal with his anger very well. After a fort is made, and the object of Max's affections KW shows up with some new friends, Carol goes into a rage and the things start fighting. Realizing that everything is not as wonderful as it seems to be King, Max begins to lose his enchantment over the island. This film really deviated from the book. In fact, the character of Max kind of scared me. As my fiance put it, he seems like a serial killer in the making. A fair description? Maybe not, but the kid has some real issues in this film. It also deviates from the book in the fact that originally, Max is just sent to his room where he dreams up all this stuff, he doesn't run away. As far as kids watching this it has the potential to scare younger children. Lets face it, monsters are scary at that age. There is a lot of anger and violence and I don't see any lessons in how to control that or overcome it. And Max is allowed to be an absolute terror with no repercussions. In all it seems that maybe this film should actually be for an older audience for artistic quality. Most children watching this aren't going to realize its showing that its ok for them to have ferocious feelings, its just going to show them a kid who's being a terror and gets away for it. Its for the adults to look back and understand that sometimes this is how life goes, children don't usually have the social maturity to understand these life lessons without experience. To be honest I've seen it said that if you don't enjoy this film you don't remember what to be a kid was like. I was Max at one time, a loner no one played with, separated family, and picked on a great deal. This movie does not remind me of my childhood at all and I'm not that far away from being a kid I don't remember what it was like. I honestly hope that few childhoods are filled with such rage as Max's; even if he does "grow" in the movie. The film was well made though with excellent graphics. The monster costumes (computer animation?) was incredible and very realistic. I also liked the area where movie was filmed, it was very scenic. I thought especially, that the scene with Max and Carol walking through the sand dunes was touching and beautiful. I also enjoyed the structure of the fort and Carol's little world. It made me want to create twig mountains of my own. The music in this film was kind of trippy. Lots of weird voices and a pleasant enough tune. I can't decide whether I liked it or not. If anything, it was a bit unsettling. Overall I probably won't watch this movie again. I'll stick to the book. While it had beautiful graphics the movie kind of dragged for me and the portrayal of some of my beloved characters was a bit off putting. If you haven't read the book though, I'm sure it can be enjoyed greatly.

This movie should be required as a case study for abnormal child psychology courses. It offers a great overview of a disturbed and unbalanced child. It was surprisely a terrible movie the worst I've ever seen, even worse than Lilo and Stitch. I'm glad it was a rental.