Where the Wild Things Are
Ξ October 25th, 2009 | → | ∇ Film |
So, the Mrs. and I finally got around to seeing “Where the Wild Things Are” last night. Two hours later, I was completely emotionally drained.
I’m assuming you already read the book. It was seven lines long. So Spike Jones made a feature length movie out of it.
A kid’s movie it is not. Don’t take your kids. If you even bother seeing it at all, see it without them. It seems to me that Jones made a movie trying to see a kid’s world from his own eyes, but exaggerated childhood to the point that it was obviously written by an adult trying to emulate a kid. Fail.
The monsters were emo and had the emotional ranges of toddlers. Wrong age group, pal. Max in this movie is closer to eight. Fail.
The monsters themselves were done by Jim Hansen’s company with some added CGI. They looked wonderful. Props.
Storyline - too damn long. Like I said, too emo to the point that by the time it ended, I was emotionally drained. I don’t think I can do that again.
Sets? OK. I personally didn’t like the fort. It just looked, well, dumb. Maybe Max’s imagination was dumb. I know mine wasn’t that lame when I was his age. I won’t give a Fail to the sets though because the water scenes looked cool. Not a spectacular use of color though. Sendak’s color scheme was much more cool than Jones’.
Overall, still a watchable movie but don’t rush out to the theater to see it. Save your money and rent it. It’s simply not good looking enough to pay a premium to see in a theater, and it’s not good enough that you absolutely can’t wait to see it.
The trailer was awesome. It has me excited. This is one of those examples of when the trailer is better than the movie itself. And what’s with missing out on Arcade Fire’s awesome song that was included in the trailer? No, it wasn’t in the movie. Instead, we got some weird chick who makes lots of noises.
I really wanted to like this movie. I did somewhat so I’m not bitter. I’m just disappointed. Wait for the rental, don’t get your hopes up, and you may think it’s ok. 4 out of 10. Maybe making a movie out of it was a bad idea after all. 
