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Home > Blogs > Sir Critic on Cinema > Archives > 2008 > March > 14 > Entry
‘Horton Hears’ a hoot!
When we last left Dr. Seuss in the grubby hands of Hollywood, the result was the abominable, abysmal and abusive The Cat in the Hat.
Writing my review in Seussian verse, I huffed:
As for the filmmakers, your sins you’ll atone
As long as from now on, you leave Seuss alone.
If you remember but one thing, remember this most:
Make “Green Eggs and Ham,” and that’s it - you are toast!
Well, with Horton Hears a Who! now in theaters, I’d like to break out the toast - and raise a glass to Blue Sky Studios. Much to my great relief, a modern-day Hollywood movie has finally gotten Dr. Seuss right.
I approached Horton Hears a Who! with terrible trepidation. Not only did Hollywood have a poor track record with Seuss, having also produced the overblown How the Grinch Stole Christmas movie, but I also feared what Blue Sky would do to Horton.
I had not been very impressed with the studio’s films. I liked the first Ice Age, but found it overrated. Robots boasted dazzling visual design, but coupled it with a dull script. Even worse was the dim-witted Ice Age: The Meltdown, which was redeemed only by the scenes with Scrat.
However, Blue Sky turned out to be an ideal adapter for Seuss. At its best the studio offers quirky, endearing characters, combined with wild and inventive visual backdrops. That pretty well describes what Seuss did too.
The movie follows Seuss’ story fairly closely. When Horton (Jim Carrey), a gentle elephant, finds out that creatures called Whos (yes, them again) live on a speck of dust he carries around, he’s determined to protect them and bring them to a safe place. His main nemesis is a kangaroo (Carol Burnett) who believes that if you can’t hear or see something, it must not exist. She paints Horton as a dangerous creature and vows to get rid of the speck.
The main addition the screenplay makes to the original story is to give Whoville and its mayor (well voiced by Steve Carell) more prominent roles, particularly by making little Jo-Jo, who lets out the climactic “YOPP,” the mayor’s only son among dozens of daughters. This clever invention gives the story emotional pull, unlike the cliched backstory in The Grinch that turned the mean one into a poor, misunderstood kid.
One of the best features of Horton is its visual invention; the movie even occasionally resorts to 2D animation for some unique moments. Seuss purists may be put off by one scene that portrays Horton in anime form, like something out of Pokemon, but the idea is at least imaginative. Best of all is a wonderful scene at the end with the Whos flying through a giant Rube Goldeberg contraption.
Other Seuss movies committed the cardinal sin of trying too hard to infuse the stories with modern touches to make it “hip” for kids or parents. Blessedly, this film keeps them to a tolerable minimum. The one major mis-step wasto build a scene around a sing-along of REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling.” For one thing, REO Speedwagon and Seuss should never, never, never EVER co-exist. For another, I can’t fight a feeling of nausea when I hear that song.
I was also worried Carrey would go off on too many pop culture riffs, as he did in Lemony Snicket, but he ropes them in for the most part, concentrating on making Horton a gentle soul, and his performance goes a long way toward making the movie very charming. If Blue Sky makes Horton Hatches the Egg, I will look forward to it. I won’t even mind if the egg (or the ham) is green.
GRADE: B+
