The few hundred words, playful drawings, beastly characters and lessons of childhood emotion in Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" has helped it to become a cultural landmark in children's literature. But it's also made the task of adapting it for the big screen without losing the book's essence seem impossibly daunting. This is left up to the imagination of visionary writer/director Spike Jonze, who even with a talented voice-over cast and spectacular images, only gets half the job done.

But that isn't due to them veering off course from the original material. The faithful film adaptation incorporates a backstory but still focuses on Max (Max Records), a rambunctious young boy who lashes out against his dog, sister's friends and mother (Catherine Keener), a single parent neglecting her son to focus on work and her new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo).

Mom and Max soon argue and he runs off into the night in his wolf costume to sail off to the island of wild things. Here, he meets Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), the dominant creature who destroys trees and houses while jealously pining for KW (Lauren Ambrose), who has left the pack to hang with her new owl companions. Joining Carol is the reliable Douglas (Chris Cooper), the soft-spoken hole-digger Ira (Forest Whitaker) and his "downer" girlfriend Judith (Catherine O'Hara), the fearful target of bullying, Alexander (Paul Dano) and a giant bull who does well enough to ominously grunt.

But Max soon asserts control of the situation, blending in with the wild things and being ordained their king, where he is asked to make the sadness go away before they "let the wild rumpus start."

The movie definitely has its transportive charm. The creatures are perfectly adapted with tremendous detail, using Muppet-style body suits with CGI faces for expressiveness and playful wonder. You'll have a hard time taking your eyes off these great creations. The cinematography is organic and gorgeous, with frenetic hand-held camera shots and scenes featuring sand dunes and woody trees. The slew of voice-over talent couldn't be better, and Records' portrayal of Max is the genuine article, not played as precocious or cutesy. And Jonze has fun with the material while crafting several moments of heartwarming and moving emotion and scenes that could bring you back to your childhood.

But the film has a few problems - and one of them's a doozy.

Once the wild rumpus starts, the plot just stalls. Other than showing plans to build a perfect city modeled after Carol's diorama where "all the things you want to happen would happen," Jonze and co-writer Dave Eggers let the middle portion of the film's 100 minutes severely lumber along with little sense of purpose. The characters talk. They sleep in fun, furry piles. They stage epic dirt fights. This will all be fun for the kids but may leave adults checking their watches. You could argue that the book's simple plot and short length doesn't allow for much else, but if they're already transforming the book into a feature-length screen dream, it could have had a feature-length story to go with it.

The rest of the film is much less kid-friendly. It's focus on the creatures' many emotional issues, idiosyncratic behaviors and sometimes wallowing depression, which symbolizes Max's many moods, is undoubtedly aimed at adult audiences. Plus, there's at least a few aggressive actions towards the film's conclusion that may have the littlest children crying for Mommy.

"Where the Wild Things Are" definitely sets off the untamed imagination we never grow out of, but the domesticated plot prevents it from becoming the cinematic classic for kids or adults many hoped it would be.