Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy feels misunderstood at home and escapes to where the Wild Things are. He lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions. The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule. When Max is crowned king, he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds, though, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated than he originally thought.

Where the Wild Things as is a film based on a beloved and cherished book that I have to admit I don’t ever remember reading so I came into the movie with a fresh outlook and no comparisons to its literary work. And for the most part I really wasn’t impressed by the movie. Sure the film is a fun, fanciful look into childhood that unravels with an almost gleeful joy at the new and strange but in the end it bogs down and the story goes nowhere. The entire middle section of the movie is somewhat boring and tiresome as you are waiting for something to happen or some great insight to be shared. Sure the movie is fun and fanciful but still it seems to be lacking in many other areas.

From what I understand Where the Wild Things as a book falls somewhere in between See Spot Run and other children’s literary classics like a Wrinkle in Time and the Narnia series. Meaning that the film is based on a book that was written for those who have just learned to read but yet aren’t ready for chapter books that are dependent on pictures to progress the story. That is what Where the Wild Things Are felt like as a movie a living picture book but without a lot of words to progress a story and enrapture and audience. There I no story there is just these beautiful and fanciful images that just lose your attention after awhile as you yearn for more substance. It leaves you thinking the movie was ok and fun but not very good at the same time.

This had to be a tough job for director Spike Jonze who was given the task of adapting something so beloved and trying to stay true to the nostalgia of having read these books as a child. But at the same time he really doesn’t have a lot to work with and he has to make due with the best he has been given which isn’t much. I think he does the best that can be expected for a film with little story and more of a visual appeal to it.

Newcomer Max Records does a great job as Max as you rarely find child actors who could carry a movie like he was forced to. After that most of the work is done by voice actors who have to try and give their characters personalities with just their voices and James Gandolfini is the perfect choice for the gruff and somewhat violent Carol. You can almost see Tony Soprano seeping through the character as someone who can be soft but at the same time can be ever so violent and harsh. Be cautioned while the film is based on a children’s book I am not sure all children can handle the violence and scariness that sometimes seeps onto the screen as the film seemed made more for nostalgic adults who loved and read the book as a child and not for children themselves.

Grade: C