First of all, I’ll straight off admit that as a kid, I never did read the original children’s book by Maurice Sendak. Second, I did do my homework and went ahead to read the book prior to writing this review 
Wow, am I glad I did, because I now understand the tremendous amount of torture it must have been for director Spike Jonze to adapt this 18-page book – 75% of which are illustrations – into a full-length movie.
After watching Spike Jonze’s “Where the Wild Things Are”, it is obvious that this beloved children’s book was never meant to be a feature film in the first place. With such a scarce amount of source material to work with, it’s clear that numerous revisions and additions needed to be made to the original storyline. This includes a slew of subplots involving Max’s (the protagonist) backstory and his interactions with the “wild things”, character development on each and every one of the “wild things”, extra characters not seen in the original story, and dialogue written completely from scratch, to name a few of the many changes. While I applaud Jonze’s attempts into making this a successful adaptation, I have to say there is little success about it. The film feels disjointed and unevenly paced throughout, the dialogue is oftentimes awkward and adds little character depth, and there really is no apparent message or revelation to the whole story.
Throughout the film, I found myself searching for themes or parallels that would bring any relevance or personal connection to the story, yet I was constantly left disappointed. For example, it is hinted many times that there is a romantic past between two of the wild things, Carol (yes, it’s a guy) and K.W., as we see Carol express jealousy over K.W.’s two friends, who turn out to be these “hooting” sage owls. By the way, K.W. introduces these two owls to Max by hurling giant boulders at them – PETA will be pissed, no doubt. Another example is Carol’s egoism, self-delusion, and inconsideration of others, which could’ve been a parallel to Max’s character, yet there was ultimately no confirmation of it in the end. Furthermore, Jonze seemed to be making a parallel with the character of K.W. who may represent Max’s Mom (played by Catherine Keener), as she takes on a more motherly role, but yet once again, there is nothing.
The storyline focuses mainly on the friendship between Max and Carol, as Max convinces Carol and the rest of the wild things that he is actually a former king who ruled over a clan of Vikings. Max and Carol then convince the wild things to venture off through the woods, where they construct a new fortress with Max as their new ruler. Amongst this main plot are a bunch of subplots where Max and the wild things do a bunch of random activities, which often feel directionless and empty in message. Some of the most emotionally-driven moments tend to fall short, especially with a continuous lack of narrative to the story. While there are a decent amount of laughs throughout, the comedy is quite spontaneous and forgettable with the little we actually know about the characters.
The friendship that apparently develops between Max and Carol is inconsistent and lacks enough development from either end. Issues are never addressed or resolved between the two as well. For example, Carol eventually realizes Max is simply a “regular”, not a king, and explodes with rage; he then goes on to rip Douglas’ (the parrot wild thing) arm off (wtf?) and runs off into the desert. Awkward. More awkward is their final goodbye, which without revealing anything further, lacks any resolution or closure. While there’s unfortunately little to spoil about the final ending, it ends on a silent note that does leave some revelation to the audience, but really nothing surprising or truly worthwhile to think about.
“Where the Wild Things Are” could’ve been a much better film than it is, but it’s still highly difficult to imagine what more could’ve been done without completely compromising the source material. The additional characters, dialogue, and subplots usually fall flat in the end which brings into question whether it would’ve been better to leave these out entirely or further expand on them. One thing I do know was that this film needed closure, which it was sorely lacking and that’s why we’re giving it the grade below.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.