Merry

Apparently I misjudged my family in offering to review this particular film. On its arrival, I handed it to dh (who if you don’t know is called Max) and he immediately said “I hated that book when I was a kid. The boy is called Max and he wears a stupid suit. I’m not watching it.'”

Well, hello… Somebody has issues!

And he didn’t watch it either. Some people just don’t know when it’s time to get over something 😉

Bizarrely enough, I’ve never read the book. I can picture it very clearly on the shelf of my classroom at school but I was such an early reader that I turned up my nose at books with pictures. We’ve never had it in the house for the girls either. I don’t know why (it may be partly that I hate picture books a little bit to be honest) but it sits alongside Each Peach Pear Plum in my head as a classic I have never read.

On the evening I gave the girls the film to watch, Bene was being hideously fussy. I assumed, because the tend to quite like fantasy, they’d love it. I didn’t get to sit in the room with them because I had to quell a ferocious beastie of my own so I have to review it by proxy. That would be an excellent way to describe it if proxy meant ‘shoe horn comments out of children by coercion and threatened supper less nights’.

The story is of a boy (Max, yes, could be worse dear, I’ve met plenty of Alsatians with your name too) who is sent to bed without supper for misdemeanours involving a wolf costume (I got that bit from the Internet, the children were hazy on the details) and goes off into an imaginary land where he stares down monsters and becomes king before coming home to bed. I would imagine he’s improved by this experience. I am going to watch the film though, just to check.

The girls said “it was quite good that they made a film out of a short book but not enough happened” and followed that up with ” the special effects were good but it all felt a bit dark”. Maddy said “it was very good at making you feel like you were really there, the atmosphere was exactly how it should be for the story… It’s just I didn’t like the thought of being in it”. Fran said “I should have done something else” but she is 14.

Josie said (and I quote) “the costumes were very scary but I don’t think they looked like real monsters”. Honestly, I don’t know quite where you go with a statement like that 🙄

Overall opinion was that had they been younger boys who had read the book, they might have liked it more. Sigh.

We are, even if it is not immediately obvious, very grateful to have had the opportunity to review this film thanks to the Tots100 Film Club and very much appreciated being sent the DVD for free. I suspect my nieces will be gratefuller.

(Sally, seriously, I’m really sorry. I did try to extract positive things out of them but to no avail on this occasion *blush* )