Movie Review - Dr. Seuss' The Lorax

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012)

Featuring the voice talent of Danny Devito, Ed Helms, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, and Betty White

Directed by Chris Renaud

Welcome to Thneedville, a town that's plastic, fake, and devoid of a single living tree...and its residents like it that way!  In fact, they gleefully sing about swimming in water that causes them to radioactively glow and buying fresh air that has to be pumped through battery-controlled machines.  And right away within The Lorax's opening minutes, I was lost.  I've never read the book and while I can assume it's very similar to the movie, this ironically jolly song was such an utter turn-off that I was kind of disgusted right off the bat.

The anti-commercialism/pro-environmental theme runs rampant through The Lorax as I know it does through Dr. Seuss' book, but it's so nastily and blatantly hitting you over the head here that it simply reeks of obnoxiousness.  All that could have been forgiven (or at least glossed over a little bit) if the story was solid and the animation looked good, but that's unfortunately not the case.

From the team that brought us the incredibly overrated Despicable Me, The Lorax animation-wise is kind of a bust.  The lack of straight lines is very Seussian, but despite being very colorful, there was no depth to any of the scenes and all of the character animation was disappointingly one-note.  The voice acting is lukewarm at best, and I found some of the dialog to be oddly synched up with the mouth movements which is something I don't notice often in animation.

And the story is just weak.  Teenage Ted (Zac Efron) is enamored with his next door neighbor Audrey (Taylor Swift) whose one true wish is to see a real tree.  After speaking with his grandmother (the ubiquitous Betty White), Ted hears of an old man known as The Once-ler (Ed Helms) who lives outside the walls of Thneedville and who just may know where Ted can find a real tree.  Upon arriving at The Once-ler's dank and dreary residence, Ted is treated to essentially a whole movie's worth of flashbacks in which The Once-ler tells of how he single-handedly destroyed all the trees surrounding Thneedville much to the Lorax's chagrin.  The Lorax (Danny Devito) was the guardian of the forest and although he befriended The Once-ler, he could do little to compete with The Once-ler's corporate greed in taking down the trees.

Fun stuff for kids, huh?  Well, the animators fill the screen with Minion-esque humming fish and cute, cuddly bears to try and counteract the heaviness, but to adults, those additions are superfluous fluff that do nothing to enhance the story.  And the songs were so awful that I couldn't believe they made it past the preliminary drawing board stages of the movie.

It's entirely possible Theodore Geisel would have been thoroughly impressed with this eco-friendly tale, but to me it was just horribly executed and a dismal attempt at recreating a Seussian landcape.

The RyMickey Rating:  D