Where the Wild Things Are

It's a quiet reminder of the power of scary-ish stories, and it's made with warmth, humor, and wisdom.

It is bewildering but not in an emotionally complex or troublesome way. It's bewildering in a narratively confused, narratively lost, we-never-figured-out-what-we-wanted-all-this-extra-stuff-to-add-up-to sort of way.

The minus I give this children's story pains me...If I had seen this film when I was eight, I would have been terrified.

Distorts Sendak's core emotional truths via rough-'n'-tumble Jackass Jr. spectacle.

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.

'Where the Wild Things Are' stands out for its unusually potent evocation of the timbre of childhood imagining, with its combination of the outré and the banal, grand schemes jumbled up with delicate feelings and the urge to smash things up.

In Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze’s masterful translation of Maurice Sendak’s beloved book, the pains, and uncertainties of growing up find a deeply personal home.

It’s as honest a tale of being a child as you’ll find on screen, with all of the fantasy and reality and joy and anxiety of childhood grounded in the imagery and the landscapes of a tyke’s mind.

There's plenty of amazing, surreal imagery and a brooding atmosphere, but little magic brightens this fantasy world.

Where the Wild Things Are isn't designed to distract children, but rather to celebrate them.