Unlike many Dr. Seuss Nazis, I wasn't about to have a conniption if Blue Sky's "Horton Hears a Who" wasn't 100 percent faithful to the source material, but only if it were able to develop an actual idea and personality all its own. Of course, I'd have to visit the twilight zone to observe any innovation of that sort that isn't wretched and vile such as the likes of "The Cat in the Hat". Shockingly, this bland little inoffensive children's flick was the first modern Seuss remake I've seen that didn't apply gross out humor or reprehensible scenes that shouldn't be shown to people under age 12 (actually, to anyone with cognitive brain functioning). This is clearly evident in that it differed from the hard hitting and uninspired gags like those in the Ice Age films and settled for a warm almost verbatim cgi recreation of the classic children's tale, sexism and all. The animation is passable, lacking any interesting exercise of the medium. It has nice color scheme and basically everything else it needs to satisfy the most tightly-wound fans of the original story. That being said, the film becomes nothing more than it's source material. The characters lack dimension, and the film as a whole remains flat, only given any sense of character from Suess' mind. The films occasional meanderings include an overly long Japanese anime spoof, funny in its own right but adding nothing but confusion to the rest of the film's content. The message of the movie is certainly welcome, whether you're simple enough to hijack a nice children's story to tout anti abortion ideas, or if you want to take from it what a small child would; to care about others despite their differences, status, or what other people may think about them. It's all the magic of what makes the books so enticing. Perhaps it's even effective enough to pose the first pieces of philosophical ideas in youngsters. Aside from all that, it's a fun film and moderately tolerable for those the kids drag along. It really should be questioned however if four years of labor and expense should only come to this. Truthfully, even though none of these Seuss films really do it for me cinematically, this was one of better ones.
Review of Horton Hears a Who!
