This is a kid’s movie released in 2009 and based on a story book from 1963 which is why I remember it as a child. Not that I was born anywhere need the sixties, but the story has been passed down generations and as I child I remember the book being extremely colourful and next to no words so I could flick through it pretending to read when making up my own story. Yes, people young boys cannot be asked to read that is a girl thing. Boys learn ways of cheating the system before they are forced into it with the school system. Sorry digression again. As I was saying this movie is made from a 1963 story about a boy coming to terms with frustration and finding out the world doesn’t rotate around him. I live in a very autistic house so maybe this is why the film ruminates with me. The film stars Max Records, Catherine Keener, Mark Ruffalo, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara & Forest Whitaker and for my take on it bombed at the box office. It is dressed up that it made a profit as it had a production budget of $100m and made $100.1m at the box office. So, if you want to class that as profit good luck to you as there is no doubt that certain costs have not been included in the $100m production such as marketing and such thereafter, equally the argument doesn’t include DVD sales (or does it!). Critically I have given it the highest rating of the now normal three in these reviews but only just as again we are in agreement almost with IMDb giving it a healthy 6.7/10 and Rotten Tomato’s score just 1 point below mine at 73%. Shall I shut up waffling and try and explain the plot now?
This is basically a fantasy story which I believe is completely within the head of the central character of Max the grumpy boy. Who likes to build forts and what boy doesn’t? He builds a snow fort which his sisters friends destroy in a snowball fight. So, he smashes up her room in revenge for not helping him. He builds another fort at home that his mother won’t join him in as her boyfriend has come around to visit. This makes Max made and he ends up on the edge of a pond in a small boat. Boarding the vessel, he heads into the pond which quickly turns into a massive ocean and he lands on a remote island. Where the Wild Things live. It maybe a little too late to mention that Max is wearing a wolf costume. When the Wild Things find him, the grumpy leader looking one decides that little Max should be eaten. It is at this point he reveals that he is a King of Land’s far away and can control magic. They change their collective minds and Max becomes an adopted leader of the group and massive creatures turn out to be quite good fun, they are called (pens ready?) Carol, Ira, Judith, Alexander, Douglas, KW and the Bull. They have a model for a design of a massive fort and Max is all over that so they set out to make it. Two more wild things arrive in the shape of owls called Bob & Terry who are friends of KW who brings them into the fort. Carol who is the grumpy head type of the group is not happy with these outsiders coming into the fort. After some thinking Max decides to split the group into Good Guys and Bad Guys which makes it possible for Max to be alone with Douglas. Douglas sees through the lie and gives advice to Max that he should never reveal to Carol that he doesn’t know magic and is just a boy in a wolf suit and not a King. Which maybe a good point to conclude the plot as Carol works out that Max is just a boy in a suit so what will happen when the illusion is debunked and Max is left on an island Where the Wild Things Live.
As I may have eluded too already, I enjoyed this movie and I enjoyed more because of the book than the film itself maybe. The filmography is fantastic to me. There are these massive hulking monsters with their own personally stalking across the screen is done fantastically. The land and the creatures are created amazingly to the point where I prefer the look of the creatures here than the cartoonish version from my youth. The trick is to take these realistic creatures and make them personable. Which I think is a really good attempt. Worth is good enough to get bums on seats at the cinema it would appear not enough but still appears that people liked it. To be completely honest I am not convinced my kids do as this has not been watched anywhere near some of the other kids’ movies in this house but this maybe why it failed at the box office. It was aimed at kids who hadn’t read the book or where too young to remember it. The story appealed to the adults of the kids who didn’t want to see it. If kids don’t want to go to the cinema my experience is you don’t go to the cinema. 2 hours or in this vase 1 hour and 41 minutes in the darkness with an unhappy uninterested child is not fun and you get snarls from other patrons. In conclusion would I recommend this movie – Yes but it needs the cinematic version so on the biggest screen you can get hold of and not on a mobile or laptop and if you remember the book with fondness you should enjoy this interpretation of the classic story.
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