CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Review of Horton Hears a Who!

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

this entry brought to you by the white stripes, "blue orchid"





I went into Horton Hears a Who with skepticism. When I initially saw the teaser practically a year ago, I was extremely apprehensive, and when I saw the trailers I thought, this movie kind of looks like crap. And who can blame me? The last few Dr. Seuss-to-cinema attempts were genuinely bad movies. How The Grinch Stole Christmas wasn't terrible, but it had this cynicism about it-- how exactly do you take something so delightful and turn it into something bogged down by real life? What was once the whimsy of one hippy's pen becomes this analyzed and constructed thing where it gets the life choked out of it. The very concept seemed flawed, and in execution it was all grinning, mugging, and endlessly art directed sets, but it had no heart. I never saw The Cat in the Hat, but from the trailers, it kind of looked like vomit in nightmarishly luminescent technicolor, with a preening W. C. Fields impersonation.

It turns out that the biggest problem with those movies (other than their awful scripts) was that you really can't take Dr. Seuss' worlds and turn them into real life without it utterly failing. Yet in 3D animation, well, it works. It doesn't seem cynical and watered down with giant, vacuous sets, it seems full of life and every bit as vibrant and whimsical as it did on paper. But where Horton Hears a Who really works is its adoration of the source material. While there are a few modernisms-- Horton imagines himself the star of a hilarious 2D kung fu anime at one point; Jo-Jo, the littlest Who, is reimagined as an eye-rolling, hair-dyed black, apathetic Gen Yer-- it stays appropriately close to the source material, without adding anything stupid and unnecessary, like giving any characters worthless backstories, as Ron Howard's version of The Grinch did.

Upon initial inspection, Horton Hears a Who has come down with a bad case of unnecessary casting-- animated movies for the past decade or so have had an over-reliance of star voice actors in every conceivable role, when using work-a-day voice actors would've been just as good, because the stars don't add anything other than an inflated budget. Jim Carrey as Horton? Steve Carrel as the Mayor of Whoville? Even Morton, Horton's rodent-like friend, is voiced by quickly-raising star Seth Rogan. And for the record, some of it is unnecessary-- Seth Rogan adds nothing at all, and I was actually disappointed in Jim Carrey's performance as Horton. Not that he does anything wrong, but when you pictured Horton when reading the book as a child, does Jim Carrey seem like a perfect fit? It didn't annoy me, and I didn't find it distracting at all, but I didn't feel like he was Horton any more than he could've been any other character. On the other hand, Steve Carrell has something with the Mayor of Whoville, who breathes life and naiveté into him, making him affable yet slightly out-of-his-league. Then there's scene-stealing Will Arnett, who illicited laughter basically with every single line spoken as Vlad, the vulture who is hired to destroy the meddlesome speck on the flower Horton's holding-- which, of course, is where Whoville is located.

If I sound overly analytical about Horton Hears a Who, it's not because I disliked the film, it's that it was so damned good the only things negative I have to say is nit-picking. Here we have a beautiful story of a loyal elephant, willing to travel to the ends of the Earth to protect his friends in Whoville who he has never seen. And it is beautifully and vivaciously directed by former Pixar animator Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino (the latter who worked on the so-so Robots, which was nevertheless gorgeous and fun to look at). However, somehow along the way the soul of the story-- which was possibly the first thing lost in the translations of the previous two Dr. Seuss adaptations-- remains in spades. The climax, with Horton pleading his little friends to make themselves known, and the Mayor of Whoville desperately urging his citizens to make as much noise as they can, while a lynch mob bares down on Horton for giving in to flights of fancy and being a bad influence on the children, is enough to possibly move you to a tear or two. It's gorgeous, funny, and it makes excellent allegories for both the conservative (belief in God), and the hippies (loving nature) while remaining subtle about both. In short, an absolutely pitch perfect family story. There have been a few DVDs that I've added to my collection that are merely for my daughter of 5 that I have no intention on watching with her ever again. With Horton Hears a Who, I'm positively looking forward to my next, oh, few dozen inevitable viewings.

...And then there's Katie, a small cat-like thing shaped like a basketball that is possibly the most hilariously surreal, bizarre little creature to show up in an animated movie in a while. I liked Katie, and I kind of want my own.
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with love from CRS @ 8:07 AM 

1 Comments:

Dr. Seuss is classic; after seeing Horton Hears a Who i remembered how much he packs into relatively simple storylines... they didn't add much to the original story either except for the usual Jim Carreyisms.

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