Animated film stays true to Dr. Seuss story
Latest book-to-movie ‘Horton Hears a Who’ targets younger audience
Posted on March 17, 2008
Following the very successful “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and the so-so successful “The Cat in the Hat” comes the newest Dr. Seuss book-turned-movie, “Horton Hears a Who”. This time around producers took the route of CGI animation to deliver Dr. Seuss’s classic story.
Like most of Dr. Seuss’s stories, “Horton” starts off with the smallest of objects. In “The Grinch” it was a world living inside a snowflake; in “Horton” it’s a world that lives within a small speck on top of a tiny flower. The world, inhabited by the Whos, falls into the hands of a happy, life-loving elephant named Horton. When Horton tells his friends he found a tiny world of Whos living within the speck, he gets laughed at and is turned against by the jungle community in which he lives. In trying to save himself from exiled, Horton must also now protect the speck from his former friends and community.
Like most big animated movies, the cast is stacked with high-profile actors. Main character Horton is played by comedic genius Jim Carrey (“Dumb and Dumber”). The other main character, The Mayor of Whoville, is played by established funny man Steve Carell (“The Office”). Those two bring most of the comedy within the movie’s short running time, but there are also several other familiar names included in this family film. Horton’s friends Tommy and Morton are played by “Superbad” alumni Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill. Also starring is Carol Burnett (“The Carol Burnett Show”) as the main “bad guy”, the kangaroo, and Will Arnett (“Arrested Development”) as the evil vulture Vlad.
Moreso than in previous Dr. Seuss movies, this film is definitely classified as a children’s movie. The jokes are targeted at little ones, and the story is a little too childish for adults to truly get emotionally involved. Not to say there aren’t a few funny lines that the average adult won’t find humorous, but that’s exactly it: there are only a few funny lines that you would honestly laugh at if you’re over the age of 16.
The CGI animation looks pretty good, but with most animated movies using it these days, it no longer looks impressive. What happened to the old-school style of cartoons?
The best part about the flick is that it’s probably the most true to the original story out of any of the other major movies made from one of Dr. Seuss’s books. Although I loved “The Grinch”, it’s basically a Jim Carrey movie. “The Cat in the Hat” was a wannabe Grinch movie, but sadly came up short for reasons other than Mike Myers playing the Cat in the Hat - it just wasn’t all that good. “Horton Hears a Who,” although it has the voices of major Hollywood actors, doesn’t evolve the movie around them. It stays true to the original story and message and doesn’t get hung up on who’s playing who, or roughly who’s playing a Who.
