DR. SUESS' THE LORAX

Reviewed by Paul Gibbs

 GRADE: B+

Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Ed Helms, Dannny Devito, Betty WhiteB
Screenplay by Ken Daurio & Cinco Paul
Directed by Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda

To start with let's get the politics out of the way: The Lorax is a tree-hugger movie, based on a classic tree-hugger children's book. It's never tried to hide that fact. If you're the type of person who is offended by environmental messages in children's movies, you should probably just steer clear of this one. But don't blame Hollywood, blame Dr. Suess. Despite additions made to expand the story to feature length, they've stayed pretty close to the source material, and completely true to its spirit. Personally, I happen to agree with the message of the book/film, but even the best of messages can be hurt by bad presentation. Fortunately, that doesn't happen here.

The Lorax is, to date, probably the best feature film adaptation of Dr. Suess (though I did find quite a bit to enjoy in Horton Hears A Who). While it's inherently difficult to adapt the charmingly simple, rhymed-verse stories to feature length, this time it's been done with a gentle simplicity that doesn't detract from the work (unlike, say, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, which for some reason decided it was a good idea to replace “His heart was two sizes too small” with “He was abused and ostracized as a child, and had his heartbroken by a slutty Who played by Chrtistine Baranski”). Two stories play out simultaneously: Ted Wiggins (voiced by Zac Efron) is the kind of lovable, daydreaming adolescent protagonist who is semi-secretly in love with “the girl next door”, Audrey (voiced by Taylor Swift). Both reside in Thneedville, a plastic dystopia where no real trees or any sort of planet life has been seen in what appears to be several generations. In order to impress the girl by bringing back a real tree, Ted leaves Thneedville to find the mysterious Once-eler (voiced by Ed Helms). The Once-eler provides us with the films prinicipal narrative, the story of how he began chopping down trees to make a do-all product called a “thneed” (I can just see them being advertised for order on basic cable), and encountered the Lorax (voiced by Danny Devito), the guardian of the forest.

The wrap around segments with Ted stray farther from the book (which features a young boy who goes to seek the Once-eler to learn about what happen to the trees, but doesn't give him a love interest or his own story). I was less immediately charmed by them than by the main story, but I have to admit I was one over by them by the end of the film, and that includes Efron's likable voice performance. For me, nearly everything in the Lorax story worked. Thankfully, Devito's performance captures the gentle wisdom of the beloved book character, instead of just focusing on being loud and obnoxious as the trailers might suggest. And Helms fares equally well, including getting a chance singing some bouncy tunes that Andy Bernard would annoy co-workers with for weeks. The various non-speaking forest animals are some of the best characters in the films, rendered by animation that is gorgeous and expressive.

The Lorax isn't up there with the best Pixar works, but it's a very solid animated film that will delight kids, and should be at least fairly enjoyable to most adult audiences. It's one of the better films I've seen so far in 2012.