M is for Misfit

WARNING: The following blog post contains heavily opinionated ranting and spoilers

Today's topic: "What was your favorite childhood book?"

There are too many to count I think but one that really stands out is Where the Wild Things Are. I loooooved that book. I mean what kid doesn't want to run away from home and party with a bunch of monsters? Now that I'm older I still love the book, but I can see that yeah Max (the book's main character) was a brat and deserved to be sent to his room. Still I love the book, it's fun and imaginative.

Well of course they made a movie out of it last year and I was stoked about it because I loved the book so much as a kid. So once it came out I went to go see it with one of my best friends and her boyfriend. All three of us left the movie feeling horribly depressed....

Now some people may think that the movie was fantastic. Fair enough but I personally thought it was a horrible massacre of the original story. Just sayin'. Here are my main issues with the movie: (SPOILERS!!)

1. I know it's popular now to having the camera move around like the audience is really there, but good gravy I almost had to get up and leave during the first half-hour of the movie. The camera was moving around so much I felt like I was going to puke because I was so dizzy x_x. Actually I think I missed part of the movie because I had to bend over in my seat...

2. Instead of sticking to the story, they changed it. I realize that all movies based off of books are going to do this which is fine. But they completely changed the mood of the movie it felt like. In the book, Max was just this bratty kid that was out of control and got sent to his room. In the movie, Max was an out of control kid, living with his divorced mother who was dating and older teenage sister that always ran off with her friends. I have a hunch that they were just trying to make the story more up to date so the audience could relate to it; however, there is a time and place for reality to come into film and this is not it. It's a children's story about imagination. Instead of leaving it at just that, they made it a dark representation of Max's inner struggle. Normally I'm totally into psychology and stuff like this but somehow it just seemed very, very wrong here.

3. It had random sometimes graphic violence (graphic for what is supposed to be a children's story anyway). I only remember two distinct scenes but still it was there. First scene: the infamous Max acts like a brat at dinner time and gets sent to his room....except he didn't get sent to his room, he ran away from home. And he didn't just act out, he bit his mom on the neck, thrown on the floor, and then got yelled at by her boyfriend. Second scene: one of the monsters (they all had names and they talked but I don't remember any of the names honestly) was really upset and he ripped another monster's arm off. There was no blood or anything like that but still! This is Where the Wild Things Are! It's a children's book! You can't have arms getting ripped off in a movie based off of a children's book!! What the crap man?!

4. Going back to the whole dark, inner termoil theme - the monsters all had names and they talked which was kinda cool I guess, but they also each became symbolism for the people in Max's life (him, his mom, his sister, etc.) and how they interacted with each other reflected on how messed up Max's family was and how messed up Max was, etc etc etc. Again, I feel like this all was way too dark and complicated for a kid's story but then again, if they didn't make this way then they probably couldn't have made a movie out of it....shrug. Mostly it was just depressing and confusing.

Overall, I don't want to see the movie again...well...ever. I left me feeling sad and sick to my stomach. I can't really explain why besides what I've already said but even then it still doesn't make sense to me. Sooooo....yeah.

Dang you, Hollywood! Quit ruining stuff and come up with something original! GOSH!

Misfit