There are two distinguished elements in director Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are -- the cinematography and the amazing costumes of the beasts. Unfortunately, they can’t overcome the failure of everything else about the film. Although marketed to appeal to kids, Jonze claims it’s not made for children, plus the movie features angry behavior throughout and seems so odd it often feels creepy. 

Max (Max Records) feels unfilled in his life. His mom (Catherine Keener) pays more attention to her new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo), and his teenage sister is preoccupied with her friends. When they come over to pick her up, they laugh at Max and even jump on and forcibly destroy a snow igloo with Max inside. He emerges without physical harm but crying big sobs of emotional pain. His sister turns a blind eye to him and leaves with her friends.

Alone and miserable, Max’s face tells it all. He runs indoors where he mentally scans his room checking out all of the imaginative things he’s created. But later that day Max has a confrontation with his mother. He bites her and runs out the door into the forest. He then crosses major seas in a boat and lands on an island.

There Max meets an eclectic group of wild animals three times his size. His first encounter is with Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), the animals’ leader. Carol appears to be schizophrenic. One moment he’s melancholy and the next he’s hurling objects at his clan, breaking down their shelters and exhibiting angry behavior children will not understand. Because he’s empty minded about how to be leader, Carol decides Max must be their king, one who has come to rule them into happiness.

Judith (Catherine O'Hara), very unattractive with a large horn growing out of her nose, is a pessimistic confusing creature who spars often with Carol and her mate Ira (Forest Whitaker). Ira has the personality of a paper towel but absorbs nothing about how to live. Paul Dano plays a goat, about the only one of the creatures able to reason, and Chris Cooper portrays Douglas, a bird-like creature who talks a lot about nothing. Lauren Ambrose is KW, a creature who bonds with Max on a normal level where her counterparts see him as the one who can make sense of their world.

Where the Wild Things Are is adapted from Maurice Sendak's 20-page 1963 children’s book consisting of nine sentences and fanciful drawings. Although Sendak was on board for the adaptation, I think he should be mortified with Jonze (Jackass: The Movie) and Dave Eggers’s (Away We Go) screenplay. Jonze’s intentions for the film make no sense to me.

“I didn’t set out to make a children’s movie; I set out to make a movie about childhood,” he said. “It’s about what it’s like to be eight or nine years old and trying to figure out the world, the people around you, and emotions that are sometimes unpredictable or confusing—which is really the challenge of negotiating relationships all your life.”

The problem with that idea involves the film’s lack of much emotion. Max’s only true feelings come out when he’s the victim of a vicious attack. From then on he’s almost a cardboard cutout; riding high on Carol’s shoulders, or watching him throw things around in a temper tantrum equal to that of a three-year-old.

Jonze also said the film invites audiences of all ages to join in the discovery, challenge and pure feral joy of a young boy’s brave journey to the island of the Wild Things. Isn’t that inconsistent with his statement not to make a children’s film? I saw Max’s journey as defying what his mother wanted, and rarely noticed any joy in his face while on the island. Max looked mostly perplexed by the harshness of Carol’s reactions and confusing statements of the group such as, “You are the first child we haven’t eaten.”

Jonze also calls his film an action movie. “There’s a lot of physical mayhem like dirt clod fights and rampaging in the forest. Indeed, the island offers up every youngster’s fantasy: the freedom to run and jump and howl, to build and destroy and wrestle and throw things as far as he can… most of all, to do only the things he wants to do, with no one saying he can’t.”

I understand why youngsters need creativity to dream and be heroes or princesses or even tough guys like Iron Man. Finding Neverland, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, The Iron Giant or James and the Giant Peach include adventure, fun and imagination while overcoming childhood problems in a positive way – not living with someone who throws tantrums, disrespects the property of others, shows no affection for those he lives with (even pulls off of the bird’s arm) and never sets a good example to others. Max has behavior problems; he’s even mean to the family dog. I was annoyed when Max returns home and instead of addressing his misbehavior for running away, he’s rewarded with a big piece of chocolate cake.

The film plods along with lame dialogue, repetitious actions, and discontented characters. It’s disheartening, and even though some critics are hailing Where the Wild Things Are, it will probably end up somewhere on my list of the worst 10 movies of the year.

(Released by Warner Bros. Pictures and rated “PG” for mild thematic elements, some adventure action and brief language.)

Review also posted at www.reviewexpress.com .