Okay, so I’m about a month late in reviewing this film, and I’m not sure exactly how many people haven’t seen this film that are ever going to, but I did see it, so I might as well review it…
What Works: More than you would think. I have to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to this movie since pretty much all adaptations of Dr. Seuss’s books have been bad (especially the horrible live action ones), and the previews for this movie made it look like the same over-busy, under-soulful mess. However, I was pleasantly surprised that this movie doesn’t completely overwhelm Dr. Seuss’s simple message of environmentalism and includes a lot of sharp jabs at our live-for-today, screw-tomorrow culture (the guy who makes a fortune selling bottled air is an especially nice touch). By making the idiot Onceler, the selfish bozo who chops down all the trees, an obliviously tragic figure who can’t see what he’s doing before it’s too late, kids are (hopefully) seeing the consequences of only living for tomorrow’s bottom-line. Plus, it’s a nice irony that this film that most critics don’t like is actually the only version of this story that DOESN’T involve chopping down trees to make it (unlike the original book, and 2D cartoon), so kudos for at least a consistent message.
What Doesn’t Work: There’s a lot going on here, and not all of it adds up. I enjoyed the flashback scenes with the Lorax more than the present day scenes, but that’s only because that’s the stuff that’s actually in the original book. This sunny, overly bright movie doesn’t really have the depth of the original Lorax movie, but I found more to like here than dislike.
What I Would Have Done Differently: For a movie called “The Lorax,” the actual Lorax isn’t in it much. Maybe he can get a spin-off of his own movie where he actually is the star, and it would be interesting to see more adventures where he tries to stop different figures from destroying the environment.
I loved this movie. I thought it was a really great Dr. Seuss film. It is actually 1 of the best animated films I have seen this year. In the movie there was a lot of funny things and I really liked the part when the kid opened the drawer and there was that despicable me character thing, I thought that was pretty cool to see that thing in there. I rate this movie an 8 out of a 10.