Where the Wild Things Are

It wasn't broke and it didn't need fixin'.

But that's exactly what Spike Jonze did when he got his hand on the amazing children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are."

This charming and imaginative tale is the story of young man with a fanciful imagination who creates a forest in his bedroom that opens to the seashore and leads to a waiting a boat where he sails night and day to the land where the wild things are.

This remarkable tale earned the Caldecott Book Medal in 1964 and has been a necessary addition to children's libraries through out the world ever since. 

It was written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak who re-created children's books with his artful illustrations and short sentences on every page.

This method opened young minds to expand on the imagery in the pages and entertain unusual story ideas.

Unfortunately Mr. Jones chose to focus on fear, loneliness, anxiety, anger and fitful rages that sometime visit the childlike mind. 

He exaggerates them, inflicts them on wild thing characters and makes them seriously frightening.

Early in the film a negotiation takes place about eating the hero Max with their terrible teeth.  Max prevails and they all hurry to go about crashing, smashing and crushing much of the forest.

Wild chases, races, and bouncing up and down across the landscape provide enough computer-generated fodder to leave the plot in a huge morass and only at the very end do compassion and love emerge as a sort of postscript, which were major themes of the story.

The wild Australian landscape makes for eerie settings, and the wardrobe for the wild things is truly remarkable if you are in to ogres.

Avoid the movie and open the book and marvel at is wizardry and clever storytelling.