Horton Hears a Who!

The work of Dr Seuss may be helmed as classic children’s literature that has lasted the test of time for their creative quaintness and quiet poignancy, but any attempts at adapting said stories into a film format have usually blossomed disastrous results. Whether it was the nice looking yet hollow scripting of The Lorax, the mean-spirited and disturbingly ugly How the Grinch Stole Christmas, or the cinematic stain that was The Cat in the Hat, every movie adaptation of a Dr Seuss story has either been at best a gross misunderstanding of the source material, or at worst a painfully embarrassing showcase of a studio’s twisted view on children’s entertainment. Ever since, few to no projects are set to be adapted any time soon, truly showing how much these films poisoned any chances of a redemption. However, in this sea of despair, one movie managed to squeak by with a solid critical rating even if only by a small margin, and that was the 2008 Blue Sky Studio movie, Horton Hears a Who! Set in the Jungle of Nool, an elephant named Horton (voiced by Jim Carrey) is enjoying his peaceful life, but he hears a faint cry coming from a tiny speck floating through the air. After placing it on a clover, Horton learns that an entire population of creatures known as the Whos live on this speck, with the Mayor of Whoville, Ned McDodd (voiced by Steve Carell) coming to the existential realization of his entire culture’s existence after contacting Horton. Learning that the speck needs to be placed in a secure location or else his world will be destroyed, The Mayor asks Horton to find their speck a new home, which he quickly agrees to. However, Horton has become the subject of mockery in the Jungle of Nool, with the Sour Kangaroo (voiced by Carol Burnett) believing that Horton is ridiculous to believe little people exist and tries to get rid of that speck by any means necessary, placing Horton and an entire city of Whos on a ticking clock. Horton Hears a Who is easily the best Dr. Seuss film adaptation and sticks the closest to the original 1954 book, but that doesn’t automatically make the film good. It doesn’t contain as many annoying qualities and feature some nice animation, decent voice work and a few nice moments, but the overactive slapstick, constant comedic energy and occasional dumb line keeps it from escaping the curse.

Despite its well-meaning nature, Horton Hears a Who isn’t one of the strongest Seuss stories and is ironically a little too complicated in some areas, but you could visualize how it could work as a movie since it already had a 1970 animated TV special directed by Chuck Jones which worked decently enough. However, due to the brisk nature and simple framework of a lot of Seuss’ work, a lot of padding is placed into these movies in order to stretch the narrative out to a feature length running time, and you can feel this movie doing that several times throughout with multiple comedic skits and slapstick-heavy instances that don’t provide much outside of extended time (which the animated shorts of the past did also do with song sequences and other dragged out moments, so it isn’t exclusive to these films). To its credit, unlike past examples which forced in useless and irritating subplots that served no purpose, this film keeps the main agenda intact and never veers away from that to an extreme level. It doesn’t elevate anything from the original story and the script written by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio doesn’t have the greatest one-liners or effective humor, but nothing is necessarily bad either and once and a while, something does end up working. While there are a few forcibly dated qualities like anime homages and certain designs and references that feel distinctly of the era (don’t know why Whos have rockstars and emo goths), they don’t overwhelm the film or drag it down to the painful levels of the films of the past. The directing by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino feels extremely frantic and promotes a goofiness that feels more beneficial for the directors rather than the story (which probably should’ve been more reserved and thoughtful), but the pacing is at least fine, the characters are exaggerated but aren’t annoying, the visuals are definitely more appealing than in live action, and despite playing things as pretty mundane all throughout, it does build to a pretty decent climax. The stakes are heightened, it feels decently stressful (at least for a kid), the musical score by John Powell really makes the moment feel climatic and keeps building upon itself, and despite ending on a bit of a limp conclusion with an out-of-nowhere song number, it does end the film at the best point, so audiences will leave more positive than anything.

The film is packed with a lot of comedic celebrities who match the tone of BlueSky fairly well, but actors can only be as good as their script, and Bluesky’s scripting is often what pulls them under, and that is no different here. It’s hard to say that these actors aren’t doing a decent job with the voice work, as nobody sounds bad given how this film is being tailored, but its heavy focus on bombastic comedic slapstick means that any form of written joke is actors riffing off each other, a dated reference that feels out of place, or just not a very memorable punchline. It also doesn’t help that some of these actors don’t even feel like the right choices for the story, with the one suffering this the worst being Jim Carrey as Horton. Carrey had already been attached to a Seuss project previously as the Grinch (which is its own can of worms to dissect), so seeing him in another project as another Seuss lead not only feels redundant, but also just an odd choice considering it doesn’t feel like he’s right for the part. Horton isn’t a very elaborate character, but the book and the cartoon made him come across as calm, wistful and honourable to an extreme degree, which is the exact opposite of the hyperactive, voice-spewing, energized man-child that is on display here. Clearly coming from Carrey’s overacting personality and BlueSky’s childish demeanor, this portrayal is not necessarily wrong as there isn’t a lot to work from originally, but it feels forceful, not serving anything in the story, and it can be a little too much at times (which can also be said for Carrey a good chunk of times, so at least it tracks). On the flipside, Steve Carrell as the Mayor is honestly not too bad, carrying a demeanor that is similarly goofy, but has enough softer moments with his family that balances things out much better, and even some of the excessive slapstick placed onto him can be slightly funny at times. People like Isla Fischer, Will Arnett and Seth Rogen feel a little wasted but still do a fine job, Carol Burnett seems like too obvious a choice for the Kangaroo and does it perfectly well even if the role isn’t that interesting, and surprise background roles from people like Dan Fogler, Jonah Hill, Amy Poehler Jaime Pressley, Jesse McCartney, Niecy Nash, Colleen O’Shaughnessy, Joey King, Bill Farmer, and Selena Gomez are strange and feel a little underutilized, but does help breathe life into otherwise nothing roles.

Considering how disastrous the live-action Seuss projects were (to the point that Dr Seuss’ widow, Audrey Geisel, prevented any more being made), the switch to animation was not only the only option, but also the much smarter one, as the look and style of Seuss’ work could be wonderfully displayed in the world of animation and it never should’ve even been a question. BlueSky Studios aren’t really known for quality movies at the best of times, but they are consistently nice with their visuals, so they do have that going for them, and while nothing in this movie really captures the zany and abstract nature of Seuss’ visuals, the vibrant colors and expressive characters do work much better in this style than in the stifling world of reality. With that said, the animation is almost a little too hyperactive in moments, with character models that flap around like inflatable tube men, slapstick that has high energy and extreme reactions, but is so overused and blandly constructed that it gets tiring after a while, and expressions that are large but often not matched with much defined character. It feels over-the-top for the sake of mindless pandering rather than actual purpose. Even if the film looks nice, even the way the characters look feels a bit too simple and boring for an oddball like Suess, and due to BlueSky’s very juvenile delivery, everything feels a little undercooked in comparison to other styles of animation (even other adaptations that would come later down the line). The funny thing about BlueSky is that once they would go out of business, Illumination essentially took their place in terms of producing blandly passable animated movies that were kept afloat due to making money, so it’s fitting that Chris Meledandri (the current CEO of Illumination) was the one who initially pitched the idea and even acted as a producer on the film, as you can certainly feel the comparisons between studios through his involvement. Even in comparison to other BlueSky films, this one is definitely humor first, heart later, but it isn’t entirely devoid of it and since it doesn’t present itself as a big-scale important movie like The Grinch or The Lorax, it can get away with being a little more by-the-numbers.

Horton Hears a Who ironically feels too small to really get that much of a reaction out of someone, and this somewhat occurred for the film when it was released, as while it did well with critics and audiences liked it fine, the box office was only average, so the film that tried the hardest to stay true to the original source material ironically did the worst out of the four (it’s a little sad to hear, but not surprising). When you look at this movie in comparison to the others, it is no contest that it is the best, but it is quite hard to call it an overall good movie as it doesn’t really have enough going for it to be labelled as such. It has pretty visuals, an occasional good line, solid voice acting and a pretty great climax, but on the other hand, the cons of the original story aren’t made better, the characters don’t really feel that interesting, the writing isn’t gold and there’s an occasional dumb dated quality, and it’s mainly just a mediocre package from every angle. It would be smarter to show kids this and steer clear from the rest, but when push comes to shove, it’d be better to just give them the books and let them process the stories as they were originally conceived instead of how Hollywood wants people to view them. Definitely not the worst but not worth thinking over, this proved to be nothing more than another speck in the list of Bluesky’s underwhelming filmography.