Where the Wild Things Are

Without being subjective in my view of the quality and appealing nature of the film I would say that this was a successful film. You can’t define success because it is subjective but I tried to look at the core of the movie and look at the numbers. The movie made over 100 million dollars internationally which is a lot more than tons of movies. Just looking at that it obviously appealed to a wide audience of both children and older people. You might say that the trailer might have intrigued people and it wasn't a good movie but a disappointing one that was anticipated. In actuality the movie only made around a third of that money from the starting weekend, so it had to have people talking right? According to Rotten Tomatoes its dark tone and slenderness was a heartfelt adaptation of the classic children’s book. The movie also received a 74 which topped Fast and Furious, Riddick, and Despicable Me 2. These were tough competitors to beat, especially Despicable Me 2 which has the same fan base and is a sequel to a highly successful first film.

Other than numbers the critics seemed to for the most part enjoy the film adaptation which was hard to bring to life. I think the major adversity to the film and its production was the gaps left by Sendak because his book wasn't meant for a film. Spike’s plot line had to make sure not to compromise the integrity of the film while chewing up time. I think that Spike’s ideas were great and served that purpose well. This was another success to me and was probably the main goal the team was trying to achieve. The CGI was amazing for a children’s film in which I thought was going to be a joke. I could barely tell that the film used CGI for the wild things. This was great considering the importance of the wild things and their effect on Max. Not to mention the landscape and backgrounds seemed to be so real. One thing however I did not like was the acting job done for Max. The actor seemed to be so fake and a came off to be whiny who actually never learned anything. This kind of dropped the ball but luckily it got saved by the performance of the wild things. The voice actors were what I was expecting when I read the book and I did enjoy them. So overall I felt that the acting was par because Max was such a major character.

Last but not least the soundtrack of the film I felt was correct and corresponded for the most part with the film. The soundtrack in my perspective was original and worked with the film instead of against which can be the downfall for some movies. With all these contributions the film was a very successful movie even if I thought the movie was boring and not in tune with my interest. I think the lack of action and only one character who is young was a real physical actor hurt the movie but that was the books fault.