Ray Stark

Did this reviewer sleep with the director? WTWTA was absolutely dreadful. Let's begin with the basics. How are we supposed to empathize with Max when he is portrayed as a whiny, annoying, animal-abusing, parent-disrespecting jerk? The kid ambushes his sister & her friends with snowballs, and then cries like a baby when his sister's friend stomps on his snow fort. Sorry kid, you deserved it. And the monsters? I've never seen a more apathetic, uninteresting bunch thrown onto celluloid. Half their dialogue was unintelligible due to their quiet mumbling. Now THAT'S film directing! The "look" of the film was one of the biggest disappointments. How could anyone mess this up? Spike Jonze, being a lackluster director (who owes most everything to the screenwriter behind his first two films) is surely up to the challenge: to make a vivid children's book bland and muted. I won't even get started with the masturbatory use of lens flares. Then there's the story...wait, WHAT story? I'll give it to him that the source material is a picture book, but while Jonze should take a few more remedial film directing courses from the UCLA extension, he should just flat out give up screenwriting. I could pick this movie to pieces but I have better things to do. However, it's unfortunate when a film reviewer is so clueless in her profession that she lionizes a pile of doo doo like this and gets paid for it.

Jun 1 - 12:09 PM