Where The Sean Gets Disappointed Are (is)
Where the Wild Things Are (WTWTA) is a terrible movie. This post is for Paal. SPOILER ALERT.
WTWTA is a terrible movie because it fails in three regards:
1. It is a crappy children's movie.
2. It is a lame "art" movie.
3. It was boooooooooring.
A successful children's movie has several elements. First, lovable characters. Second, a strong, goal-driven plot. And three, a positive, uplifting theme, message, or moral. Take The Wizard of Oz (TWOO) for example, it is a great children's movie. Dorothy, our heroine, is a charming young woman. The three friends she meets on her journey are equally lovable. Sure, the Cowardly Lion kind of blows, but he's last so you don't have to put up with him for long. Dorothy has a clear goal: to make it home again. On the way she explores an enchanting land and learns the value of friendship. The film is uplifting. It is also suspenseful. Dorothy faces some obstacles in her journey making her return all the more moving.
WTWTA, unlike TWOO, is an awful children's movie. WTWTA's protagonist Max is an obnoxious brat. His monster friends are whiny and melodramatic. Not one of the monsters is consistently cool or funny through out the film. That Goat sucks. The Bird sucks. The Bull is useless. They are not likeable. Max's journey has little purpose. He's mad at his mom. He runs away to his happy place. He finds that place sucks. He goes home eventually. And what uplifting message is there?
"You can't make people be civil to one another."
"Things don't always work out."
"If you treat your mom like shit and ruin her night she'll be glad to see you and give you chocolate cake."
Bahh! Garbage.
Some people view WTWTA as an "art" film. For simplicity, I'll define an art film as a movie with the following features:
A wandering protagonist
Layers of apparent symbolism
Strong visuals and music
A sense of possibility
Moral ambiguity
Minimalist plot
Examples of this type of art film would be: Vanishing Point, Lost Highway, and Morvern Callar.
WTWTA fails as an art film because it still tries to be a movie for children. Although the visuals and soundtrack to the movie are admittedly strong, the other failings dash any hope of WTWTA being regarded as a strong art film. Yes, Max is a wandering protagonist, exploring the world of his imagination through his unique view. But it soon becomes apparent there is little about his world to find surprising or intriguing. As soon as he leaves for his island, the viewer knows he will eventually return home. His aimless wanderings between these two plot points lack any scenes of interest and are bogged down by some terribly heavy-handed symbolism. A good art film doesn't batter you over the head with its symbols. WTWTA does. There are painfully obvious parallels between the snowball fight and the dirt clump fight. The quarreling monsters are obvious representations of Max's parents or Max and his mother.
I will concede that the part where he's in a monster's stomach was clever and unexpected. The rest sucked.
And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, WTWTA is a terrible movie because it's boring. The film starts fresh and exciting for the first 20 or so minutes with an experience of the world through a nine year old's eyes. I believe the most interesting scenes were those early in the film. Perhaps my favorite shot in the entire picture is of Max lying beneath a table, tugging on his mother's stockinged feet. But this doesn't last as the film follows Max to his magical place which is devoid of fun and totally sucks. It is simply NOT ENTERTAINING. Whiny monsters with regular people voices? Please! And the whole "hey let's smash things" gets tired after about five minutes. Then the movie just drags for an hour before finally ending. I didn't like Max much to begin with but by the time he runs home I find that I loathe him. Monsters should have gobbled him up.
What would have made a better movie?
Max gets mad at his mom.
Max wishes she would disappear.
Max runs off to a magical island.
Max has a wild time eating popcorn and watching mobster movies with new monster friends.
Max's mom misses him.
Burglars show up to the island.
Max's mom looks for him.
Max fights off the burglars with the help of his monster friends.
Max sees him mom again and they make up.
THE END
Also:
Who imagines their fantasy world to be populated by losers that mope around all the time?
WTWTA is a terrible movie because it fails in three regards:
1. It is a crappy children's movie.
2. It is a lame "art" movie.
3. It was boooooooooring.
A successful children's movie has several elements. First, lovable characters. Second, a strong, goal-driven plot. And three, a positive, uplifting theme, message, or moral. Take The Wizard of Oz (TWOO) for example, it is a great children's movie. Dorothy, our heroine, is a charming young woman. The three friends she meets on her journey are equally lovable. Sure, the Cowardly Lion kind of blows, but he's last so you don't have to put up with him for long. Dorothy has a clear goal: to make it home again. On the way she explores an enchanting land and learns the value of friendship. The film is uplifting. It is also suspenseful. Dorothy faces some obstacles in her journey making her return all the more moving.
WTWTA, unlike TWOO, is an awful children's movie. WTWTA's protagonist Max is an obnoxious brat. His monster friends are whiny and melodramatic. Not one of the monsters is consistently cool or funny through out the film. That Goat sucks. The Bird sucks. The Bull is useless. They are not likeable. Max's journey has little purpose. He's mad at his mom. He runs away to his happy place. He finds that place sucks. He goes home eventually. And what uplifting message is there?
"You can't make people be civil to one another."
"Things don't always work out."
"If you treat your mom like shit and ruin her night she'll be glad to see you and give you chocolate cake."
Bahh! Garbage.
Some people view WTWTA as an "art" film. For simplicity, I'll define an art film as a movie with the following features:
A wandering protagonist
Layers of apparent symbolism
Strong visuals and music
A sense of possibility
Moral ambiguity
Minimalist plot
Examples of this type of art film would be: Vanishing Point, Lost Highway, and Morvern Callar.
WTWTA fails as an art film because it still tries to be a movie for children. Although the visuals and soundtrack to the movie are admittedly strong, the other failings dash any hope of WTWTA being regarded as a strong art film. Yes, Max is a wandering protagonist, exploring the world of his imagination through his unique view. But it soon becomes apparent there is little about his world to find surprising or intriguing. As soon as he leaves for his island, the viewer knows he will eventually return home. His aimless wanderings between these two plot points lack any scenes of interest and are bogged down by some terribly heavy-handed symbolism. A good art film doesn't batter you over the head with its symbols. WTWTA does. There are painfully obvious parallels between the snowball fight and the dirt clump fight. The quarreling monsters are obvious representations of Max's parents or Max and his mother.I will concede that the part where he's in a monster's stomach was clever and unexpected. The rest sucked.
And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, WTWTA is a terrible movie because it's boring. The film starts fresh and exciting for the first 20 or so minutes with an experience of the world through a nine year old's eyes. I believe the most interesting scenes were those early in the film. Perhaps my favorite shot in the entire picture is of Max lying beneath a table, tugging on his mother's stockinged feet. But this doesn't last as the film follows Max to his magical place which is devoid of fun and totally sucks. It is simply NOT ENTERTAINING. Whiny monsters with regular people voices? Please! And the whole "hey let's smash things" gets tired after about five minutes. Then the movie just drags for an hour before finally ending. I didn't like Max much to begin with but by the time he runs home I find that I loathe him. Monsters should have gobbled him up.
What would have made a better movie?
Max gets mad at his mom.
Max wishes she would disappear.
Max runs off to a magical island.
Max has a wild time eating popcorn and watching mobster movies with new monster friends.
Max's mom misses him.
Burglars show up to the island.
Max's mom looks for him.
Max fights off the burglars with the help of his monster friends.
Max sees him mom again and they make up.
THE END
Also:
Who imagines their fantasy world to be populated by losers that mope around all the time?
This entry was posted by Sean, on
Friday, October 23, 2009.
You can leave your response.
Very well said, I honestly can't even argue with you, and many on the Blogulator staff know how argumentative I can be!
Everything you said was true, and you have definitely pointed out some solid intellectual reasons that I should dislike this movie.
For me though, it just comes down to the simple fact that I thought the movie had the right feeling. That's it, it just had the right feeling. Therefore, I liked it.
I have to imagine that this is the same way that most people came down on their preference for it.
Finally saw this last night.
Paal, you're too nice to Sean. He's totally wrong!
I do not have much time nor do I know if anyone will even see this, it being almost six weeks after the fact, but here are my rebuttals to your 3 flimsy arguments:
1) No one who reads/writers for The Blogulator should care if this is a good kids movie because we're not kids anymore. We're adults reflecting on what it was like to be a kid, much like Jonze and Eggers did in making this film or Maurice Sendak did in writing the book. And the original text did not care about goal-driven plots, because kids like Max don't care about goals, they care about how messed up and angry they feel and don't know how to deal with it. FACED.
2) Your need to classify WTWA as either a kids movie or art movie just shows your inability to accept something as unique. It can't have the classic wandering art film protagonist because its protagonist is not an adult lost in adulthood on his own - it is a child lost in childhood on his own. And a child doesn't use subtle symbolism because he's a child, and of course his make-believe worlds are going to directly mirror his psychological grief and trauma. FACED.
3) Yeah it was kinda boring. But I like boring movies because you're forced to look at the details like the excellent one you pointed out about Max pulling on his mom's stocking. Loved that. If the movie was a goal-driven kids flick or a pretentious art picture about aimless adults, you wouldn't have moments like that. Also, being a kid is kind of boring. You have all these emotions but don't know anything about the world or relationships that you just end up creating havoc either in your head, in your backyard, or both. You don't have the power to carefully structure the plots of your make believe wars, friends, or worlds.
It's aimless, but it's passionate, and that's why I loved WTWA.
You're right about one thing, Chris. This film was unique.
UNIQUELY TERRIBLE!!!!
TRIPLE-FACED!
Back me up on this one, Doktor.
Not responding to either of your specific points at the moment, but wanting to get in on the FACING...
I was bored to death, and by the end of the movie I was asking myself one question:
"Will you make the sadness go away?"
Haha okay so the sadness bit was a little lame, but I was totally not bored to death. The camerawork, art direction, and music was enough alone for me to immerse myself in. Movies are rarely as beautiful as this one was to look at and listen to.
DoktorPeace and Sean are totally the Douglas and Carol of The Blogulator. Qualler and Brigitte are Ira and Judith. Lady Amy is KW, OHD is Alexander, and I am THE EFFING BULL.
SO WATCH OUT BEFORE I STAMPEDE YOU!!!!!!!
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