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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wow man
Date: 2009-11-12 11:02 am (UTC)The voices were my least favorite part of the movie too, but I guess I tried to rationalize the choice so I could squeak thru the rest of the movie.
I also agree on the no resolution... he goes home and just keeps staring at his mom over and over as she adores him... uh.... I guess we're supposed to figure, uh, he's home and he's learned his lesson that he shouldn't run away...? uh, maybe?
Despite the turn-offs, I did enjoy the puppets a lot, and so I added some points back in for that (even though I did wanna see Douglas get his arm back). Still, you make excellent points and thanks for the perspective!
Re: wow man
Date: 2009-11-12 07:53 pm (UTC)Also agree with the Douglas-arm-bit: I'm still not sure what the point of that was. To show that they are just stuffed animals? So kids won't be too scared? If the director thought, "Let's rip his arm off to show that they're just toys!" then clearly the director never had a stuffed toy he loved (just -threaten- to harm a beloved stuffie and a child will have hysterics!)
Re: wow man
Date: 2009-11-13 12:17 am (UTC)I haven't seen Wild Things yet but I got that hipster vibe off the trailer. I will wait for Netflix I guess.