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(1 - 49) of 49 OFCS Rating: 73% Fresh Page   1   "Jonze's choice to once again drain the color from the film and use hand-held camera amidst the surreal is what gives Where the Wild Things Are a strange naturalism different from all other films that tend to be aimed at children."   Examiner.com   Adam Lippe 5/5 "absolutely amazing, as scary and beautiful as being a kid all over again."   Filmcritic.com   Bill Gibron C+ "Spike Jonze obviously has his heart in the right place here, but extending something so perfectly concise, so willingly brief, to an absurd length invites more trouble than triumph. The rumpus runs out of steam quickly."   BrianOrndorf.com   Brian Orndorf B- "While not an "instant classic," "Where the Wild Things Are" does what it sets out to achieve as a literal but also embellished translation of a literary classic."   ColeSmithey.com   Cole Smithey "Feelings of loss and frustration, acted out so loudly, raucously, and repeatedly, are at the center of Where the Wild Things Are."   PopMatters   Cynthia Fuchs 3.5/5 "Spike Jonze's new film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's classic 'Where the Wild Things' Are is more admirable than enjoyable."   eFilmCritic.com   Dan Lybarger C+ "Heartfelt, whimsical, well-performed... and pretty damned boring."   EDGE Boston   David Foucher C "Ever so slowly runs out of the story's magical ingredients."   Ozus' World Movie Reviews   Dennis Schwartz 4/4 "Bold and cinematic, at once wondrously epic yet achingly intimate and honest. Touting it as this century's answer to 1939's The Wizard of Oz would not be flagrant hyperbole."   DustinPutman.com   Dustin Putman 3/4 "Max's dilemma and emotions are distilled to their essence, so the way his real-life suffering informs his dreamscapes becomes unmistakable."   Slant Magazine   Ed Gonzalez B- "The film is lacking as a whole -- it's individual moments and scenes that make it worth seeing."   Film.com   Eric D. Snider 4/4 "The sort of innovative storytelling that will see Where the Wild Things Are mentioned in the same breath as some of the best family films ever made."   eFilmCritic.com   Erik Childress A- "It's a coming-of-age fairy tale, delivered with remarkable subtlety, patience, and confidence in its young audience."   AMCtv.com   Eugene Novikov "They're all militantly dreary, like a Prozac-starved version of the seven dwarfs. (There's Lugubrious, Needy, Fretful, Disconsolate, Remorseful...)"   CinePassion   Fernando F. Croce C+ "One appreciates the mixture of fidelity and imagination that Jonze has lavished on Sendak's little book, but in the end the magic spark that marks a classic eludes him."   One Guy's Opinion   Frank Swietek 5/5 "A haunting, innovative, and poignant film about childhood that may have you howling with the Wild Things inside and around you."   Spirituality and Practice   Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat B- "Faithfully capturing the textures of juvenilia should be a means, not an end..."   Cinepinion   Henry Stewart 3/4 "The result is an involving experience for all but the most fidgety children and an opportunity for parents to enjoy (rather than endure) a motion picture with their offspring."   ReelViews   James Berardinelli 3.5/4 "Jonze and Eggers do an admirable, and at times alchemic, job of transforming the slim volume into something decidedly weightier in terms of plot without sacrificing the essence of the book's focus on the darker edges of childhood"   Q Network Film Desk   James Kendrick 4.5/5 ""Where the Wild Things Are" is a great film because, for all of its wonder and magic and delight, it also knows about confusion and reality and sadness."   MSN Movies   James Rocchi "Parental Content Review"   Screen It!   Jim Judy 2.5/4 "Spike Jonze's beautifully audacious and sadly flawed film brings Maurice Sendak's much-beloved, nine-sentence children's story to vivid, CGI-enhanced life. If only he had kept it a short story."   Big Picture Big Sound   Joe Lozito "There's no coddling going on in this immersive live-action film, which, like a dream, is both eerily matter-of-fact and fantastical."   ReelTalk Movie Reviews   John P. McCarthy 2/5 "Occasionally I will mitigate opinions when I reviewing a film I know carries an emotional charge for people... to impart a sense of fairness. This is not one of those times. Where The Wild Things Are made me want to punch someone in the face."   Cinerina   Karina Montgomery 2/5 "There’s an incessant disconnect between what we hear and what we see; the true soulfulness of Sendak’s parable never emerges."   Time Out New York   Keith Uhlich 3/5 "Without a smirk, the film stands out from the many pop-culture-laden, wisecracking studio franchises."   School Library Journal   Kent Turner 4/5 "really isn't a kids' movie as much as it is a movie for those of us who used to be kids"   7M Pictures   Kevin Carr 4/4 "I truly hope I never turn into the kind of person who isn't able to enjoy a movie like this."   Montreal Film Journal   Kevin N. Laforest A- "In this amazing, if not perfect adaptation, the filmmakers subtly create an alternate reality for Max...and they have done it in an incredibly imaginative and moving way."   Reeling Reviews   Laura Clifford 2.5/4 "Does indeed deserve admiration for its loving actualization of Sendak's world ... but the movie's dissertation-like expansion of the story never truly comes together into anything meaningful."   Mark Reviews Movies   Mark Dujsik 5/10 "While the book works fine for the younger set, the film tries to be too much an Alice-in-Wonderland-class story for all ages, but it rarely works for both young and old at the same time."   rec.arts.movies.reviews   Mark R. Leeper "[V]ery much itself, confident and certain and no more and no less than what it needs to be, if the goal were merely to transfer Sendak to the big screen..."   Flick Filosopher   MaryAnn Johanson 4.5/5 "Jonze's camera gazes upon Carrol and company just like countless readers have, and thus "Where the Wild Things Are" tributes and adds to its inspiration."   Film Threat   Matthew Sorrento 4/4 "A work of genuine imagination and intelligence that doesn't try to ram the same old feel-good platitudes down our collective throat."   Aisle Seat   Mike McGranaghan A- "Maurice Sendak's spare, poetic, and deeply wise book has been lovingly unfolded into a movie about the child -- and the wild things -- who live in all of us."   Beliefnet   Nell Minow B+ "A mature, striking exploration of the way that kids feel."   Lessons of Darkness   Nick Schager 5/5 "It not only manages to bring a beloved classic to the screen in a manner that perfectly captures the spirit of the book but expands and build on its themes and ideas in ways that are both enormously engaging and strikingly powerful."   eFilmCritic.com   Peter Sobczynski 5/5 "This is a strange (and moving) heffalump indeed, a future cult classic if ever there was one."   eFilmCritic.com   Rob Gonsalves B "It has its problems to be sure, but then again so does Max... and like Max, it learns to makes peace with them before time runs out."   Mania.com   Rob Vaux B "Regardless of whether or not the film means anything at all, it is a triumph of visual imagination, production and set design and costuming."   Laramie Movie Scope   Robert Roten 5/10 "Maybe fun viewing for some kids, but even most eight year olds will want more story than this."   Monsters and Critics   Ron Wilkinson "The emotions at the core of each scene are sincere, and invariably true to the source."   Not Coming to a Theater Near You   Rumsey Taylor "It's as honest a tale of being a child as you'll find on screen..."   Seanax.com   Sean Axmaker 2/4 "Sendak's book crackled with the combustible energy of adolescent anarchy and creative play -- two elements severely lacking from Spike Jonze's mopey, withdrawn feature-length adaptation."   Charlotte Weekly   Sean O'Connell A- "The book is about anger, while the film is as much about sadness. Here is a film broken-hearted over the messiness of the world. It is sad, and beautiful, and true."   Decent Films Guide   Steven D. Greydanus 8/10 "An endearing, engaging, escapist story for all ages, earning a place of honor among family-friendly films."   SSG Syndicate   Susan Granger 6/10 "The fact that Jonze and Eggers are revealing so much of themselves in this emotionally crabbed tribute to the unending hell of childhood is itself reason to see the film."   Antagony & Ecstasy   Tim Brayton 5/5 "If The Goonies is kids' adventure, Flight of the Navigator is kids' sci-fi and Gremlins is kids' horror, then Where the Wild Things Are is the rarest of all, a genuine kids' drama, and it is a stunning one at that."   DVDTalk.com   Tyler Foster 4/4 "the rare work of art in any media that actually evokes the experience of sadness, the sensation of melancholy, the mechanism of regret. We're lucky to have it."   Film Freak Central   Walter Chaw  (1 - 49) of 49 OFCS Rating: 73% Fresh Page   1