WATCH THE LORAX MOVIE MOVIE

Sadly, these are the only jokes that really work. Even making the Lorax a bit of a wise-ass isn't the worst compromise in the world. Seuss' names: 'Swanyswans', 'Barbalutes', and 'Hummingfish').

WATCH THE LORAX MOVIE MOVIE

The Lorax finds a good way to get in some entertainment value by showing the Once-ler's relationship to the woodland creatures (although the movie doesn't bother to give them Dr. Obviously, you can't scold kids for 90 minutes about the importance of trees.

Likewise, the humor becomes an end unto itself rather than a way to stress the moral of the story. He's a codger, not a humbled voice of sage wisdom. When he's boarded up in his home, he's still a funny guy who likes marshmallows and has fun contraptions to keep people away. He's simply 'misguided' and even at his lowest, he's someone who has let success go to his head rather than let it corrode his soul. But the movie is scared to make him even slightly unlikable. It's one thing to show the Once-ler with a face and a back-story showing the youthful enthusiasm of someone who wants to make his fortune.

They, like everything else in the movie, they're done more to shield a message rather than deliver it. Having a new corporate greed villain is a bit heavy-handed, but it makes the story more immediate to Ted and provides some stakes in getting the trees back.īut these concessions aren't thoughtful ways of expanding the story. Giving the young boy a name and a motivation is a good place to start (even though Audrey is treated more like a goal rather than a person).

There's nothing necessarily wrong with that approach. Seuss' book had a simple premise: a young boy visits the Once-ler and the Once-ler tells the tale of how his greed and ambition chopped down the forest, and how he should have listened to The Lorax, who 'spoke for the trees.' That's not enough for a movie (it was barely enough for the 1972 television special), and so a feature-length film needs some padding. O'Hare ( Rob Riggle), who doesn't want the trees to come back because they would ruin his business, which is selling bottled air.ĭr. Ted's secret excursions out of town puts him under the eye of the Thneedville's corporate-evil-guy-in-chief Mr. The Once-ler retells his story involving the ineffective defender of the forest, the Lorax ( Danny DeVito), but forces Ted to keep coming back to hear the whole tale. Ted's cool granny ( Betty White) tells him to go outside the town and speak with the Once-ler ( Ed Helms) and learn about what happened to the trees. Ted (voiced by Zac Efron) is out to win the heart of his pretty neighbor Audrey ( Taylor Swift), who wants to see a real tree rather than the mechanical ones that overrun their metal world of Thneedville. Seuss, and then pours all of its energy into being hip and funny but succeeded at neither. The Lorax gives a begrudging nod towards environmentalism, a halfhearted tip of the hat to Dr. Illumination Entertainment's big 3D CGI-animated adaptation could care less about either. The Lorax didn't have the joy and humor of his other books but instead left its readers with a poignant message and dire warning. Oh, the Places You'll Go! is a moving story that could be read to anyone at any age and still be meaningful. Not everything he wrote was Green Eggs and Ham (which, in all fairness, stresses the importance of trying new things). Seuss wasn't afraid to provide serious messages in his books.

Watch the lorax movie