Where the Wild Things Are
Nov. 11th, 2009 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furtechJust saw the adaptation of Sendek's book. Longest 30-minute film I've sat through ever.
The Bad:
All my fears of what Jones did to the book were realized and then some. If you go to see this, you can skip the first 25 minutes and the last forty-five. There is some nice monster romping in the middle.
My greatest fear was that they "Yuppy-ized" the book, turning it into a touchy-feely thing instead of the *Rawr* boy and monsters fantasy the book was. Spike Jones (the director--though I think the musician would have done a better job, even being dead and all) totally gentrified the story. They can't decide whether to make Max a kid with tourets symdrome or a sympathetic boy who needs attention. The result is a boy who comes off as a neurotic brat. If they had just made him cartoony-crazy and spent five minutes showing this-- that would have been GREAT. Instead, they tried to make him the monster of the book AND a REAL BOY in the REAL WORLD. Weird.
As soon as the monsters spoke, I knew I was doomed. They sounded -just- like the crowd from Starbucks. Yuppie and soft-spoken-- like that tone of voice couples use in bed in PG films. WTF. I get it, Spike: yeah, the "monsters" are the self-involved adults in the world around Max. When I was a kid monsters had real voices: gravelly or shriek-y or anything monstrous-- not Woody Allen refugees! And the soundtrack! AIIEEE!!! New-age "calming" music! Again, WTF?!! If you heard the soundtrack apart from the film, you'd -never- guess it was from WTWTA! It sounds like day-spa music! Don't even get me started on the dialogue!
As noted above, the last 45 minutes or so were also worth ignoring: the tone turns suicidally depressing and there is -no- resolution or closure with the monsters. Basically Max screws everything up, betrays the trust/faith of the monsters and then just leaves when everything is ruined. That's it. Nice.
The whole end of the movie is a complete downer. You leave the theater thinking, "What's the point?"
The Good:
The costumes were -fantastic- and almost worth the price of admission (assuming it was a matinee). I'll definitely buy the disc with additional features when it comes out. I am desperately curious about the inner structure of the suits: they were able to run and jump and fall without the usual buckling and wobbly-bouncing that over-size pod suits like this suffer from. Also, I think they used CGI animation to manipulate the facial acting (like they did with the animals in "Babe"). Absolutely seamless!
Cut for spoilers and general crankiness wrt the film.
The Bad:
All my fears of what Jones did to the book were realized and then some. If you go to see this, you can skip the first 25 minutes and the last forty-five. There is some nice monster romping in the middle.
My greatest fear was that they "Yuppy-ized" the book, turning it into a touchy-feely thing instead of the *Rawr* boy and monsters fantasy the book was. Spike Jones (the director--though I think the musician would have done a better job, even being dead and all) totally gentrified the story. They can't decide whether to make Max a kid with tourets symdrome or a sympathetic boy who needs attention. The result is a boy who comes off as a neurotic brat. If they had just made him cartoony-crazy and spent five minutes showing this-- that would have been GREAT. Instead, they tried to make him the monster of the book AND a REAL BOY in the REAL WORLD. Weird.
As soon as the monsters spoke, I knew I was doomed. They sounded -just- like the crowd from Starbucks. Yuppie and soft-spoken-- like that tone of voice couples use in bed in PG films. WTF. I get it, Spike: yeah, the "monsters" are the self-involved adults in the world around Max. When I was a kid monsters had real voices: gravelly or shriek-y or anything monstrous-- not Woody Allen refugees! And the soundtrack! AIIEEE!!! New-age "calming" music! Again, WTF?!! If you heard the soundtrack apart from the film, you'd -never- guess it was from WTWTA! It sounds like day-spa music! Don't even get me started on the dialogue!
As noted above, the last 45 minutes or so were also worth ignoring: the tone turns suicidally depressing and there is -no- resolution or closure with the monsters. Basically Max screws everything up, betrays the trust/faith of the monsters and then just leaves when everything is ruined. That's it. Nice.
The whole end of the movie is a complete downer. You leave the theater thinking, "What's the point?"
The Good:
The costumes were -fantastic- and almost worth the price of admission (assuming it was a matinee). I'll definitely buy the disc with additional features when it comes out. I am desperately curious about the inner structure of the suits: they were able to run and jump and fall without the usual buckling and wobbly-bouncing that over-size pod suits like this suffer from. Also, I think they used CGI animation to manipulate the facial acting (like they did with the animals in "Babe"). Absolutely seamless!
Cut for spoilers and general crankiness wrt the film.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-12 02:54 am (UTC)These were not monsters id want to hang out with and these were not the monsters that have been part of my life for..well most of my life! Far too adult in the most boring, "take-away-all-feelings- of- wonder" sense of the word.I feel like a lot of it was very self indulgent in a very bad way. Max was a difficult, spirited kid but this Max was so unlovable to me. All of the monsters were unlovable to me...and that's pretty tough to do.
It felt like a film about childhood by people that don't really remember the good parts of being a kid and dwell on bad parts while also throwing in buzz kill after buzz kill. By adults that just don't GET monsters and what they really symbolize to a lot of people. I love you Spike, but dude this was not the movie to explore arty , boring themes and make a terrible soundtrack with Karen O ( who you just happened to be sleeping with at the time...thanks a bunch for giving her the job, ugh) You dropped the ball and i don't care that Sendak is all about this movie.
I understood the themes they were trying to explore but i think it dragged the whole thing down and made it into a steaming pile of unlikeable crap pasted over a dusty, brown, hipster tinged background.
But damn those suits were brilliant, weren't they? I think i heard they did use CG to get those faces to look so good.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-12 07:22 pm (UTC)Totally agree with your take. It's clear we're both monster fans, eh?
no subject
Date: 2009-11-16 07:25 am (UTC)