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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Where the Wild Things Are

EMAILPRINTWarner Bros. Pictures

Where the Wild Things Are reviews
71
6.2 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 249 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Adventure  |  Drama  |  Family/Kids  |  Fantasy

Written by: Spike Jonze
Dave Eggers

Directed by: Spike Jonze

Release Date:
Theatrical: October 16, 2009
DVD: March 2, 2010

Running Time: 101 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: PG for mild thematic elements, some adventure action and brief language

Starring Catherine Keener, Max Records, Mark Ruffalo, Lauren Ambrose, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, and Forest Whitaker

The film tells the story of Max, a rambunctious and sensitive boy who feels misunderstood at home and escapes to where the Wild Things are. Max lands on an island where he meets mysterious and strange creatures whose emotions are as wild and unpredictable as their actions. The Wild Things desperately long for a leader to guide them, just as Max longs for a kingdom to rule. When Max is crowned king, he promises to create a place where everyone will be happy. Max soon finds, though, that ruling his kingdom is not so easy and his relationships there prove to be more complicated than he originally thought. (Warner Bros.)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

This is one of the year's best. To paraphrase the Wild Thing named KW, I could eat it up, I love it so.

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100

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

What he’s (Jonze) ended up with strikes me as one of the most empathic and psychologically acute of all movies about childhood -- a "Wizard of Oz" for the dysfunctional-family era.

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100

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Not since Robert Altman took on “Popeye” a generation ago, and lost, has a major director addressed such a well-loved, all-ages title. This time everything works, from tip to tail.

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100

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Jonze has filmed a fantasy as if it were absolutely real, allowing us to see the world as Max sees it, full of beauty and terror. The brilliant songs, by Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and the Kids, enhance the film's power.

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100

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

As wish-fulfillments go, this is a movie lover's dream.

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100

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

With Where the Wild Things Are Jonze has made a work of art that stands up to its source and, in some instances, surpasses it.

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100

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

In elaborating on the original book so boldly, and repopulating it so richly, Jonze has protected Where the Wild Things Are as an inviolable literary work. In preserving its darkest spirit, he's created a potent, fully realized variation on its most highly charged themes.

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100

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

His (Jonze) obvious affection for, and veneration of, Maurice Sendak's 1963 Caldecott Medal-winning children's book is palpable in his near-perfect live-action adaptation, a dreamy -- and, like Sendak's book, faintly nightmarish -- exploration of one child's tantrum-y side.

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91

The Onion (A.V. Club) Josh Modell

Spike Jonze has recently said in interviews that his chief goal ...was to try to capture the feeling of being 9. By that measure--by just about any measure, really--he succeeded wildly.

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90

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

His film captures the wonderment of dreaming - and the reality of waking.

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89

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

I don't want to oversell the thing. It is, quite simply, something very special indeed.

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88

USA Today Claudia Puig

Like the book, the movie blends a primitive quality with an imaginative artfulness. It also amplifies upon the story's gentle, sly wit.

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83

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

There are some great, rapturous moments in Where the Wild Things Are. Jonze is humbled before the wonders of a child's imagination, and so are we.

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80

Empire Dan Jolin

A film for anyone who’s ever climbed trees, grazed knees or basked in the comfort of a parent’s sympathy as they’ve pulled you off the ground crying. It’ll make your inner child run wild.

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80

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

The film treats kids' inner lives as more than a fantasy, which is a rare and beautiful thing.

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80

New York Magazine David Edelstein

For all the artfulness, the feel of the film is rough-hewn, almost primitive. It’s a fabulous tree house of a movie.

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75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie felt long to me, and there were some stretches during which I was less than riveted. Is it possible that there wasn't enough Sendak story to justify a feature-length film?

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75

ReelViews James Berardinelli

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.

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75

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A satisfyingly moody, melancholy, madcap live-action romp.

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75

Boston Globe Ty Burr

This version of Where the Wilds Things Are isn’t about childhood at all but about childhood’s end and what’s gained and lost by it. That’s why very young kids, dull Disney princesses, overprotective parents, and self-serious grown-ups should probably stay away.

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67

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It IS a film that deflates you too often, despite its efforts to impart a sense of soaring. In the end, where the Wild Things are is in your imagination and in Sendak’s pages, not in this big-hearted but ultimately faint simulation.

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63

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Jonze lets the magic ebb away in a sorry mesh of strained relationships.

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63

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

To their credit, the creative team has retained the handmade look and unruly spirit of Maurice Sendak's bedtime fable; to their discredit, they haven't added enough narrative or emotional dimension to make it an effective movie.

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60

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Where the film falters is Jonze and novelist Dave Eggers' adaptation, which fails to invest this world with strong emotions.

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60

Variety Todd McCarthy

Director Spike Jonze's sharp instincts and vibrant visual style can't quite compensate for the lack of narrative eventfulness that increasingly bogs down this bright-minded picture.

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50

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Wild Things isn't overlong, but it is underwhelming.

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50

The New Yorker David Denby

I have a vision of eight-year-olds leaving the movie in bewilderment. Why are the creatures so unhappy? That question doesn’t return a child to safety or anywhere else. Of one thing I am sure: children will be relieved when Max gets away from this anxious crew.

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50

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Mature folks may wonder why a simple and simply beautiful story from their youth has been buried under layers of emotion Woody Allen's psychiatrist might want to pick over.

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50

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The film lacks the menace and danger of Sendak's book, along with the beautiful simplicity and delicated, understated portrait of a lonely, misunderstood boy.

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50

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Warmly and gently handled, though the central story, detailing the personal politics between him and the six childlike monsters, steadily loses steam.

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50

Slate Dana Stevens

It's just too bad the end result isn't a better movie.

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50

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The most daring thing that Jonze and Eggers have done is make a children's film that might not really be for kids.

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50

New York Post Lou Lumenick

In their overly earnest attempt to flesh Sendak’s story out to 100 minutes, Jonze and his co-screenwriter, novelist Dave Eggers, have laboriously spelled out motivations (divorce is bad!), elaborated back stories -- and added reams of less-than-inspired dialogue.

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50

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Less an adaptation of its source material than a therapeutic response to it.

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40

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

When faced as a director with the rudderless screenplay he (Jonze) co-wrote with Eggers, he's been powerless to energize it in any involving way. Sometimes you are better off with 10 sentences than tens of millions of dollars, and this is one of those times.

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40

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Jonze's ideas, visual and otherwise, spill out in a faux-philosophical ramble that isn't nearly as deep as he thinks it is; at best, it's a scrambled tone poem. Even the look of the picture becomes tiresome after a while -- it starts to seem depressive and shaggy and tired.

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40

Time Out New York Keith Uhlich

The true soulfulness of Sendak’s parable never emerges.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 249 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bren gave it a1:
This movie was an unfocused, boring mess. Just because the director backlights practically every shot does not make it emotionally profound nor does it support any filmic metatexts. Key problems: 1. The monsters have regular adult voices, and these voices are used for complaining all the time thus crushing any form of escapism 2. Max is too old to be behaving like a 4 year old- he comes across as a kid with ADHD 3. The film is incoherent and formless with no building action, climax or resolution- if Warner Bros. wanted an art film, they could have gotten Godard to make it- and better 4. The film is political in the sense that if you don't like it you are vilified as a soulless conservative just because a committee of granola crunching potheads thought they were making a profound film. Don't ever bother watching this film. Read the book instead 40 times in the 101 minutes running time of this adaptation (and I use the term loosely) and it will be time better spent.

Leo L gave it a4:
Overrated slow-paced mess of a film that is dull for adults and children alike. Half my group of friends feel asleep. The moral of the story seems to be that running away and coming back means that bad behaviour is rewarded. Psycho-babble does not a deep film make.

Paula D gave it a9:
A gem of a movie. It's like an art piece but makes you remember how you thought as kid again.

Ted D gave it a3:
I just saw the film, Where the Wild Things Are, last night. There were moments that I really liked in the film but even in those moments I felt frustrated in that the movies main character had never been fully develope much less a sense of exceptionality in his life experience. Even when I tried to appreciate the setting and creation of the wild animals I was aware of my boredom. And as to the insights into childhood, I found those self-indulgent. One scene stood out to me. Before running away, the boy stands on the kitchen table saying "Feed me woman" and asserts more than he knows only to find that he is more terrified with his mothers remark, "What is wrong with you? Maybe he knows in a post Freudian world living with a single Mom and watching his Mom flirting with her boyfriend. His answer is to set sail and find a new family where he can be King and in becoming King he becomes tamed. I like the insight but a whole film?

Ed gave it a10:
Beautiful, heart wrenching, poignant. I can only assume that those who have chosen to bad mouth this wonderfully original piece of cinema have forgotten what it was like to be a child on the brink of losing your innocence and entering a more serious world. So you people can go see Transformers 2 for the 5th time and let the rest of us bask in the glow of a wonderful film that doesn't treat its audience like complete morons.

Mark G gave it a10:
This movie is a creative masterpiece.

Vince S gave it a0:
Anyone who rated this movie above a 2 should seek help! Did Jones even have a script it seems the Actors were thrown on to set and Spike said, Ok say something! They seemed lost thru the whole movie, if Spike Jones would have just stuck to the book it might have been good instead we got this, I want my money back!

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