Considering the critical success rate of films based on Dr. Seuss's classic works, where both the live-action How The Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in The Hat failed, and the animated Horton Hears A Who succeeded, I was willing to bet that this film would succeed. The odds seemed in its favor, with the only successful Suess movie before it also being animated. According to the mainstream critics of sites like Rotten Tomatoes, one could I say I bet on the wrong horse...or did I?
The Lorax
Directed By Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda
Starring Zac Efron as Ted, Ed Helms as The Once-ler, Taylor Swift as Audrey, and Danny DeVito as The Lorax
I understand that there's a certain difficulty in adapting something like a children's book into a 90 minute feature film. The original source material may not provide enough to meet the run-time, so you may have to "pad" the story or fill time. So in a way what The Lorax does can be justified, but it doesn't really do it all that well.
The nameless child from the book who asks The Once-ler what happened to the trees is given the name of Ted, and a drive in the film, and the voice of Zac Efron. He ventures out of his futuristic, plastic town to discover trees to impress this girl Audrey (Taylor Swift). Once out in the desolate wastelands of yesteryear he meets The Once-ler (Ed Helms) who tells him the story of his encounter with The Lorax (Danny DeVito) and how he eventually caused the destruction of the Trufula Trees.
While all this is happening, the head of town O'Hare (Rob Riggle), keeps a close eye on Ted, determined to make him fail in his mission, and ensure his business of bottled air will continue to thrive. Now if you remember from the book, The Once-ler wasn't exactly the nicest guy. In the film, he's a bit of a goof, and instead of doing things on his own, he's persuaded into chopping down more trees by his greedy family. The film makes him a more sympathetic character. The filmmakers might have been afraid to make him a bit unlikable, but they should have taken a page from the classic Disney films of old, where the villains can be just as well liked as the heroes.
There is a clear and real conflict between The Once-ler and The Lorax in the book, but in the film it's more of an unlikely brotherhood, and how The Once-ler betrays it, and because of this, and the dumming down of The Once-ler's character, is where O'Hare comes in as the film's main villain. The Once-ler could have still have served the purpose of the villain, if the filmmakers were brave enough. O'Hare is kind of there to help shove the whole environmental message down the viewer's throat, which also hurts the film. Had he not been in the film, perhaps the movie would have had a stronger impact, like say that of Wall-E.
Like most animated films, The Lorax relies on some musical numbers to get the story moving along. But unlike Disney musicals, they really just don't fit, well most of them, the final number is quite catchy. The songs The Once-ler sings are just too "modern" for this story. Just because Ed Helms can sing and rock out on a guitar doesn't mean he should. That and the song "How Bad Can I Be?", which depicts his transformation into a greedy miser, enjoyable as it is, hurts the film. It would have been so much better to see his turn into this character, rather than flash through it in a two minute musical sequence. Also kind of ironic that the only member of the voice cast known for her singing (Taylor Swift), doesn't sing...
When I watched the clips and trailers online, I thought that the celebrity voices they picked were just too celebrity. I could not distinguish the voices from the character. Thankfully, that problem did not transition into my viewing of the film itself...well, except maybe Betty White's character of Granny. Ed Helms does get very close to playing the typical type of character we expect him to play. I would have liked to see him play the actual version of The Once-ler from the book. Finally, it felt like they were trying too hard to make the fish, bears, and birds do what The Minions did in Despicable Me.
I understand the creative decisions behind the making of The Lorax, but I do not completely stand by them, when there were better options. Nevertheless, I'd rank it 3rd out of the 4 Dr. Seuss films, and definitely think it's viewing at least once.
