Where the Wild Things Are

The background for this film is based on the 1963 Children's Classic book titled the same name as the film, written by author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. This picture book later went on to win the Caldecott Medal for 1964. Now it is known as a popular as a bedtime story and sold over 19 million copies by 2008.

Normally there are two ways films like this can go. Either one it will become a mega-hit like the Narnia and Lord of the Rings movies and actually follow the movie or else it will completely mess up the story and only follow the basic idea of the book. Unfortunately this goes more with the second option than the first.

While the original book's story involves a boy who gets sent to bed with no supper and travels to an imaginary land "where the wild things are". He then claims himself king and dances with joy with the monsters. The short book then ends with him returning home after missing his home. The new film follows this line but twists the parts in it to make the film very sad.

It is shown in the start of the film that the boy is a lonely kid, but he channels it wrong and throws a major tantrum of violence and comes off as just a bratty kid. From what in the book was just his imagination, in the movie he actually runs away from home and to a dock a takes a boat to find himself on the island of the wild things. Whether he imagined it or not (probably not) it is still wrong that he ran away. When he reaches the island he finds the wild things in a sad mess(look at the sondtrack cover above), and yet as he leaves them in the end, he still leaves as a seemingly even worse sad mess.

There is a considerable amount of violence in this film as the book had none in it. Sure they are wild but they are seen hurting each other without any emotion of apology. While there is no blood, a wild thing's arm is ripped off permanently by another wild thing.

To sum the whole thing up, the movie is sadder than even "A Series of Unfortunate Events" which was at least funny. If you think this is a children's movie, it shouldn't be. Sendak oversaw this project and approved all of it. Sadly, I think he could have done a much, much better job. The best thing that I saw with this film were the effects, but those were mostly just costumes.