The Week in Film: "Wild Things," a date for "A Single Man," and trailers galore

My high school reunion wound up being not at all traumatic, so I'm not certainly not going to let the week's movies get me down.

This week marks the long-awaited premiere of Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, adapted (by Jonze and novelist Dave Eggers) from the beloved children's book by gay author and illustrator Maurice Sendak. I can imagine audiences being widely divided over this movie — after all, even the book has had its detractors over the years — and I can say that I definitely liked it without ever really loving it.

Max Records stars as Max, the wolf-suited boy who misbehaves and runs off to an island inhabited by monsters who make him their king. The movie offers delightful visuals, a sweetly plaintive score by Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Carter Burwell, and terrific performances by Records and Catherine Keener, along with the voices of James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper and Paul Dano.

But for all the time I spent admiring it, the movie never allowed me to get swept up into it.

The exceedingly silly Law Abiding Citizen is one of those movies that avoids predictability by making absolutely no sense whatsoever. Well, that's one way to do it, I guess.

Gerard Butler stars as a man distraught over the fact that one of the men who killed his wife and daughter got a short prison sentence in return for copping a plea. Ten years later, he wreaks vengeance not only on the men who killed his family but also on the entire legal system that let it happen, particularly ambitious associate district attorney Jamie Foxx.

It's mostly ridiculous, but Butler does at least strip naked to show he's still got his 300-pack abs. Chuckle over Law Abiding Citizen next year when it pops up on Cinemax.