Where the Wild Things Are (Review Part 1 of 2)

Where the Wild Things Are (Review Part 1 of 2)

Wild Things Are is a heartwarming and fun film that will bring out the young child in all of us. If you played snowball or dirt clog fights in the streets, Wild Things is your movie. Spike Jonze does amazing job with the movie.

Like the childhood storybook, the movie has the same basic structure. However, the movie fleshes out the book’s story with more character development. A troubled, lonely young boy with a huge imagination runs away from his mother and family and appears in this strange world where Wild Things live. These creatures are frightening at first, but the young boy tricks them into believing that he is a king. He attempts to solve their friendship issues by helping them unite.

What Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers have done here is give each monster a full history and range of expressions. The writers gave each monster a personally that fits their appearance. We get to learn which one is the shy one and which one is the mean one and so on.

The Wild Thing that receives the most character development is certainly Carol. He is the leader of the Wild Things. His voice actor is the impressive James Gandolfini. Gandolfini does such a good job that he makes Carol both menacing and loveable when it calls for it. And, Carol can be a likeable creature, but very mean. There is one scene where he does something very violent to one of the other Wild Things. I was surprised they got away with it in a PG movie. I won’t give it away but it happens toward the end of the movie.

In many ways, Carol is the Wild Things version of Max. Max is played by Max Records. Max as a character goes through the most changes. I started out hating this guy and thought he was too much of a crybaby. As the story progressed, I started really liking Max and the actor that plays him. I enjoyed the journey that the character goes through mentally and physically.

Composer Carter Burwell’s music fits very well into Spike Jonze’s slight shaky-cam scenes. I’m not sure where Karen Orzolek’s music fits into the movie, but she is listed.