Where The Wild Things Are, is an adaptation from the picture book of the same name. Not getting into the details of the book, the movie is about Max, a young boy, who has troubles in his house, and escapes to an island. That's barely covering what happens. I won't say much else, but it is a different type of movie. I won't say anything negative or positive in this section, that's for later. The story is very very short, only a couple pages long. Within the entire story, there were only 8 sentences, or it might have been 9, I don't have it with me, I have it at my mothers house. Spike Jonze directed this movie, and he's relatively new, although he directed a very good movie called Being John Malkovich, which is one of my favorites. This is the review.
Spoiler alert. Don't read if you don't want to be spoiled!
Review of "Where The Wild Things Are".
Plot Summary.
This is very hard to nail down. During the first 15 to 30 minutes there is a plot, somewhat. It starts out as Max outside building a fort and having a snowball fight with her sister and her friends. Stuff happens, he gets pissed, breaks her stuff. The same night, he wants to play with his mother, she won't, stuff happens, he gets pissed, runs away. He takes a boat to this island and discovers these "things". I'll get into more discussion on them later. There's a lot to talk about. I can't really describe a plot to what happens after he gets to the island. There's no real climax, and if there are climaxes, it just seems to be a bunch of ups and downs throughout the entire movie. Then he just goes home, sits down with his mom, who smiles and falls asleep, and credits roll.
The Good.
Alright, the good. There really isn't much good, but there is good. I mean, things do happen, but it's not part of the plot, or character development, or scenery, visuals, summary, acting, or any of that. There's some humor, which is somewhat odd. There's some fear, despite it coming out as funny to me. The greatest thing I can emphasize on, is the ridiculous amount of metaphors, and symbolizations, and personifications. There's just way too many. That part of the movie, gets a 10 out of 10. Spike Jonze, the director, really nailed it with those. I'll list a few, I really looked closely at this movie, and I made a lot of connections, and they seem to fly by some people. All of the wild things, are basically people in real life. They are all big, because he's small. I don't know if you can make this connection, but think about it, the goat, is max. He's ignored a lot, and people don't really pay attention, and he's the smallest out of all of them. He gets all excited when any body pays attention to him, and he wants Judeth, the other thing, Ira's wife, to carry him, which symbolizes how he wants attention and wants to be guided and whatnot. Ira, is the husband of his mother, in real life. All of this is starting to get confusing, but it's true, if you put it together. There's still more to go. Carol, is max. Yeah, he has two incarnations of himself. The really quiet and alone side, and the crazy wild side, which is Carol. He acts just as he did within the first 15 to 30 minutes. He got stepped on, he bit his mother's shoulder, he goes crazy and yells a lot, and is very confused at many things. KW, I think can symbolize his sister. His sister disregards him, just like at the snowball fight. I don't really want to put more emphasis on this whole things, because I've written a lot. But there is a character in real life, for every wild thing, even Bob and Terry. Just look it over. That's really all there is for good.
The Bad.
Jesus, this is where I get to let loose. I can't really write this like I would say it, but nothing happened. Nothing happened. Nothing Happened. I can't really say anymore. I mean literally, he goes to the island, everything from there, just has no point. No point at all. It's almost a pointless movie. Nothing happens, and I can explain to everyone why nothing happens, and how nothing happens. First off, there is absolutely no reason for anything going on. Everyone is completely sad almost all the time. They have some fun, but even after they have fun, sadness entails. It's just like a really version of chaos. It's a chaos of nothingness happening. The way I can describe it is like this. He goes to the island, he becomes king, because no one knows what lying is. Apparently Douglas knows the truth the whole time, but says nothing. He starts letting everyone go crazy, and they all jump around everywhere and then he sleeps. After he sleeps, he wakes up, and goes to this cavern, which means nothing. He decides to build something to make Carol happy, which looks nothing like what was in the cavern. So they all start building a fort. After the fort is done, Carol goes apeshit, because Max wanted a place where he could be alone. He rips an arm off, chases Max to kill him. Then he leaves the island, but Carol comes running, to say goodbye to max. They all love each other, after everything thats happened. That's it. Isn't that an amazing plot? I mean seriously. Just the plot itself, and what happens, or rather, what doesn't happen, makes the entire movie go down in flames. You really can't have a more disgruntled plot. It was just all over the place, and nothing happened. Okay, I get it, there was a lot of emotion, but you can't say just because the movie had a lot of emotion, makes it a good movie. That's like if you were to meet a girl or guy, do absolutely nothing, get pissed off at them for no reason, then say that you love them, and you become best friends. It just doesn't work like that. No plot, no coordination, no real sense. The very last scene, where Max is just eating, and his mother just falls asleep, and it goes to credits, I actually said out loud "I swear to god, if this is the ending...", and right after I finished saying that, the credits just rolled. I can't say anything else.
My Overall Thought.
Ugh, this movie really hurts my mind. When I was in the movie theatre, at the end, when the god awful last scene ended, and the credits came up, I heard clapping. It wasn't a little amount of clapping either, it was like, almost everyone in the audience. Mike thought the movie was absolutely brilliant, and I explained to him why it was horrible, and he didn't really have any rebuttable except for the whole emotion thing, and that's what everyone said. I went to see it with maybe 15 people, Allaire and I were the only ones to despise it. I was so confused, I just got up and just started talking to everyone, "Was that a movie? What was that? Did I just watch a movie? Where was it?". I was so angry, and disappointed. I wanted to get my money back, but I couldn't. I can't believe this movie got somewhat decent reviews, it just angers me even more. I think this movie was the worst movie of this year, and that's saying a lot. I've seen a lot of movies, and this is just down at the bottom. What I don't understand is how so many people liked it that much. I'll never understand it. I think I understand the movie more than most people, maybe that's it.
My Rating.
This god awful movie, doesn't deserve anything more than what I'm about to give it. Let me direct the goddamn movie next time. 2 out of 10.
