AT THE MOVIES - Heavy-toned 'Where the Wild Things Are' respects original book

*** 'Where the Wild Things Are'

Substituting airy family cheer with heady self-indulgence, director Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich") may have lost a near majority of head-scratching critics and 3-D crazed tykes with his dark adaptation of the popular 1963 picture book "Where the Wild Things Are," but he sure hasn't lost his audacity.

In such, though his gorgeously grim portrait of a small troupe of uncivilized beasts and the bratty boy who crashes their clique may not whiz by comfortably with Pixar-precision, it's hard to lambaste the guy for a labor of love so somber and indistinct.

I can't say that if I were a middle-schooler today I'd be captivated and solidly entertained by Jonze's sepia-toned spectacle, but as an adult, I'm impressed with his gall and deep affection for Maurice Sendak's original vision.

Teaming with Sendak and writer Dave Eggers, Jonze's PG-rated, but adult marketed, adaptation has been a long time coming, whirling around in post-production purgatory with an inflated budget and a lot of tense studio heads rapping their fingers in wait. Luckily, the film wasn't handed off to a kid flick shilling powerhouse, so the end result is as disjointed and as mysterious as getting spit out into a ditch on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike after sliding down a brain canal.

Our movie follows the structure of Sendak's lightly-worded book, as we meet the mischievous Max (Max Records) in mid-rampage. Donning a haggardly constructed, pajama-like wolf costume, Max torments his single mom (Catherine Keener) and is shunned by his older sister. After throwing a violent tantrum one evening, Max bounds out of the house and into a fantasy world where he meets a cluster of scary, woolly creatures in their forest habitat.

The creatures speak like adults but act like children, quarreling with each other and crashing about, until Max crashes their gathering and avoids being eaten by claiming to be a powerful former king. The monsters recruit the brazen boy as their new king, in the hopes that he will bring them all happiness, stability and structure.

The unruly gang has been so reckless, that one of their own has abandoned the tribe for mellower pastures, yet returns upon witnessing the boy's ability to entertain the beasts. But wild is as wild does, and Max is not so much a mediator as he is a rabble-rouser.

Jonze challenges genre conventions by toppling expectations. Don't expect the beasts to sound like Sesame Street characters, despite their puppety torsos. Instead, expect the tempered speech of Tony Soprano and Claire from "Six Feet Under" (James Gandolfini voices Carol, the hot-headed leader of the crew; Lauren Ambrose voices KW, the dissenting and kind-hearted martyr.)

Despite a cheery soundtrack from Karen O, quirky lead singer of hipster faves the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, don't expect an hour and a half worth of giggles and glee. Instead, expect a film peppered with moments of intense sadness and longing, along with a couple of frightening sequences, obviously padded a bit by nervous producers. The pacing is lulling like a drama, the camera work is wobbly like a guerrilla music video, and the tone is from another planet altogether, as childlike righteousness collides with issues of abandonment, anger and misguided authority; heavy stuff for a movie with Jim Henson Studio puppets in action.

Unfortunately, Jonze's final product is not the masterpiece it probably could have been, if only it were based on something more substantial and less publicly adored. Sendak has produced a wealth of affecting work, but "Wild Things" was his most celebrated. But there is power in the original text. Even if our protagonist was an unlikable scamp, most likely still broken despite his misadventures, Sendak still gives us a ferocious portrait of youth, however brief and bold it may be. Jonze honors this sentiment, sluggishly so, but with more respect to his inspiration than most other adaptations, family influenced or otherwise.

- Now playing at CinemaWorld, Lincoln, 622 George Washington Highway, 401-333-8676, cinemaworldonline.com .