The movie Where The
Wild Things Are has been on the verge of success from the moment it was
announced that Spike Jonze was on directing duty. FINALLY, Where
The Wild Things Are would merge with
a director that has a tried and tested sense of vision and style. Almost too good to be true.
Except for one thing…..it wasn’t that good.
Yes,
unfortunately I wasn’t moved the way I thought I’d be with this movie. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece…more of an emotional
and frightening walk through the land of the wild things. The movie was a touching attempt at capturing
the nuances of Maurice Sendak’s,
book while expanding the universe into a film forum. To Warner Bros. credit, they picked the right
man for the job by hiring Jonze.
On paper, all seemed well.
As each
frame passed, I began to form a distinct feeling that this was a movie which
had a larger vision then what was being delivered. To be frank, nothing really happened. That’s the big let-down, nothing happened AND
there wasn’t a terrifying moment in the
film. But why?
As a
child I remember reading The Wild Things (All
two words of it) and feeling a creepy sense of uncomfortably. I credit the illustrations as part of this
“sense”. Also, Sendak’s literary non-substance gave
the book an additional spark
that just made it, well……FUCKED UP.
This
leads me to the largest complaint about the movie. YES, there were Jonzeisms that made the movie great and YES the
vocal talent was a good choice. Fans of Jonze get their “artistic
handjob quota” because the director made a wise decision to use puppets as The Wild
Things rather than full CGI. (Or Pixar!) However, I get the distinct feeling that Jonze wanted this movie to be
darker while the movie studio clearly wanted it to be kid friendly. (Case
in point) There were also some
performances that were omitted from the movie and recast. (Tom Noonan was at one point doing voice work
for one of the Wild Things.)
What resulted was a shit-omelet
which had no plot or tension. For example:
When Max is crowned King of the Wild Things, he notices bones in a pile
of rubble. He asks if those are the
bones of other kings. This line touched
on a few instances that I thought could’ve been expanded. Why not make the wild things a degree more
frightening? Why have them compete
against a rival tribe of Wild Things? The
only dramatic arc of the entire movie emanated from the character K.W.
Other than that shit, I liked the
movie. The book wasn’t a significant part of my childhood, but there
were as many rights with about The Wild
Things movie as there were wrongs.
In the end what we saw was a unique and faulty version of the
legendary tale.
What do you think?
You’re fuckin out, I’m fuckin in – Kenny Powers