How can hollywood go SO wrong with what was a delightful children's story!
This movie captures the book in moments. Especially where it ends in one of its few redeeming moments, when the boy, like the boy of the book, finds that he misses his home (wishes the monsters had a mom) and sails back home.
The movie, while it has the look of the book down SO well...misses its spirit entirely, in my opinion. The script writers couldn't seem to let the fanciful stay fanciful, while enjoying a deep-dive into a little boy's imagination.
Instead, they introduced emptiness, finality, and loss, into a story that never had a place for it, while trying so hard to hide these behind pointedly childishly-sounding dialogue. The tearful monster goodbye could have been so much better had it not been tainted with too much heavy-handed, very adult realism beforehand.
I wanted to enjoy this movie, but it truly missed the mark with me and my family.