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"WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE"
(2009) (Max Records, voice of James Gandolfini) (PG)

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QUICK TAKE:
Fantasy/Drama: A hyperactive child imagines traveling to a distant land where he becomes the king of a group of large creatures that have their own share of personal and interpersonal issues that they and thus he must deal with.
PLOT:
Max (MAX RECORDS) is a young boy apparently suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, a condition exacerbated by his older sister, Claire (PEPITA EMMERICHS), no longer wanting to play with him and his mom (CATHERINE KEENER) spending time with her new boyfriend (MARK RUFFALO). When she disciplines Max for his latest bit of acting up, he races out of the house at night in his wolf costume, down the street and into the nearby woods.

There, he finds a sailboat, sets sail across a vast sea, and beaches himself on a distant land inhabited by a small group of monsters, most of which dwarf him. There's the unofficial leader, Carol (voice of JAMES GANDOLFINI), who has anger issues, some stemming from the fact that KW (voice of LAUREN AMBROSE) has left the group to hang out with some new friends.

Judith (voice of CATHERINE O'HARA) and Ira (voice of FOREST WHITAKER) are a couple of some sort, while the goat-like Alexander (voice of PAUL DANO), the smallest of the bunch, believes that no one listens to him. Then there's Carol's best friend, the bird-like Douglas (voice of CHRIS COOPER), as well as The Bull (voice of MICHAEL BERRY JR.). When the creatures view Max as a problem, they decide to eat him, but his order for them to be still makes them subservient, and they proclaim him as their king.

As he rules them via a child's mindset and imagination, he and they must contend with their various personal and interpersonal issues that threaten their happiness and ability to get along with each other.

OUR TAKE: 4 out of 10
When it comes to source material for movies, no person real or imagined, no historic event, and certainly no previously published fiction is out of bounds. Hollywood often prefers the latter, not only due to the built-in name recognition, but also because consumers plunked down some moola for it in the past and thus might possibly do so again in the "new and improved" version.

Likewise, it doesn't seem to make any difference if said material would make a good fit for a movie adaptation or if the length is too long (War and Peace, The Bible) or too short (the record holder in the not too distant future might just be the proposed movie version of the old Asteroids video game).

While it's not quite as abbreviated as that and actually contains characters, plot and a dramatic narrative, some people may be wondering just how a movie has been made out of "Where The Wild Things Are." After all, the classic children's short story -- originally published way back in 1963 by Maurice Sendak -- runs a small number pages with just a handful of lines of actual writing.

The rest of course, is filled with wonderful illustrations (what with the work being a picture book after all), and since pictures can obviously tell a story (that's the basic definition of a screenplay), some studio Einstein figured heck, why not take the beloved work and turn it into a full-length movie? To be fair, this isn't the latest Hollywood craze to capitalize on anything and everything that's famous (or moves for that matter), as various folks have been working on bringing Sendak's story to the big screen since back in the 1990s.

Differing accounts will relate various tales about why it didn't work or was abandoned over the years, but for better or worse it's now arrived via the hands of director Spike Jonze, the creative director best known for the reality bending art house flicks "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation." And since it's a tale of a boy's imagination run amok, with a journey to a far-off land filled with the title creatures that would likely make Freud proud (what with all of them representing the various manifestations of anger, fear and other emotions), the filmmaker would seem a perfect fit for the material.

Yet, something was amiss with the first version of Jonze's film, as it was supposed to be released in 2008 and was then sent back for reshooting. The reasons for that as well as how much was retooled or replaced might only ever be known to those inside the studio. In any event, this adult film about childhood is an ambitious but ultimately flawed experience that thankfully isn't as awful as other full-length adaptations of beloved classics such as "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and "The Cat in the Hat," but it's far from good. Art house aficionados and highfalutin critics might just eat it up, but word of mouth from the general population may just result in a brief run in theaters.

Part of that's due to the way it's being marketed, which is toward kids, but it really isn't intended for them, despite many having read the picture book and notwithstanding the people in creature costumes with digitally enhanced faces who populate this tale. In a way, it somewhat resembles the old H.R. Pufnstuf or Muppets material as channeled through a soap opera and lots of psychoanalysis. As a result, kids might be drawn in by the creatures, but will end up scared by some parts (if very young), confused by other bits ("Mommy, why are the monsters so sad/mad/angry/jealous/name your favorite negative emotion?") and/or bored out of their little minds.

The latter will likely apply to adults as well, and certainly to yours truly who couldn't wait for the endeavor to end (if only the monsters ate the boy as intended near the beginning, then the running time would have been closer to the source material than the resultant 100-some minutes).

Yes, I understand the psychoanalytical archetypes that are present, and who couldn't (at least among adults) as they're about as subtle here as, well, a really big monster with horns who strangely sounds like Tony Soprano (were "The Sopranos" still on, perhaps Mr. Gandolfini's character could have had surreal dreams like this). I also get the classic plotline of a kid who escapes into his imagination in order to deal with general or specific unhappiness in his existence (that specifically regarding not being happy with the mom character, played by Catherine Keener, having a boyfriend in Mark Ruffalo who appears so briefly it makes one wonder how much of his original footage was booted in the massive re-do).

Without a substantial plot to prop up all of that (Jonze and his co-writer Dave Eggers fail on that count), however, the film never really goes anywhere or amounts to anything beyond the obvious. Sure, one can give the filmmakers kudos for being ambitious (both in trying to adapt the short story's words into a nearly two hour movie and in making an adult film about childhood), and I realize that Jonze brings a lot of good will to the screen from fans and critics alike stemming from his previous efforts.

But adoration and ambition don't mean anything if the plot is threadbare, the main kid (the appropriately named Max Records) is annoying (purposefully so) and the score ends up being the same due to trying to ramrod the whimsical and eccentric nature of the material directly into our collective cerebral cortex. On the positive side, the character effects are topnotch (save for the jumping, leaping and bounding efforts that look decidedly fake), as is the vocal work (yes, I eventually got over the Soprano aural connection, with the actor ending up creating a quite memorable character).

It's just too bad there isn't anything more present to support his and the rest of the work that obviously went into this offering, especially regarding a core story that's all about imagination and dealing with one's emotions. The original picture book did that with purposeful brevity, which once again proves it's sometimes best to leave well enough alone. Frustrating when not boring, "Where the Wild Things Are" rates as just a 4 out of 10.




Reviewed October 13, 2009 / Posted October 16, 2009


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