I have some good news and I have some strange news.
The good news: Jim Carrey, obviously miffed about blowing ass in all his work since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, decided to make a kick-ass movie again. The strange news is that the movie he made is Horton Hears a Who!
The 2000s have not been good to Dr. Seuss. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (which also starred Carrey) was generally panned, and The Cat in the Hat was generally despised. It’s not too surprising. Seuss’s fantastically lyrical world is difficult to translate into a full-length feature film while preserving the whimsy and imagination of the original works.
So, it’s a huge credit to Horton‘s makers that the latest Seuss adaptation is, well, really good. The movie bases itself in Seuss’s text, most of it narrated by Charles Osgood (who, by the way, doesn’t even begin to encompass the oddness of a cast that includes Jonah Hill and Isla Fisher), and branches off from the original in the most delightful of ways.
For those who aren’t familiar with the story line, the plot goes something like this: Horton the elephant is chilling in the lake one day when a speck of dust floats by. Horton thinks he hears a voice coming from it and, upon talking to said dust speck, discovers a tiny city called “Who-Ville.” Horton decides he wants to help his newfound microscopic pals out and tries to find an isolated place where he can put the speck out of harm’s way. But for some reason, the rest of the jungle, led by a kangaroo and her son, think he’s nuts. So they try to stop Horton and destroy the speck.
While Osgood’s gentle baritone keeps the movie rooted in Seuss, the rest of the characters take wonderful flight throughout the course of the film, extrapolating on Seuss’ sensibility to pleasing effect. A good example of this is the Mayor of Who-Ville, who is voiced by the excellent Steve Carell. A character that had very little depth in the book, the Mayor is now a frantic but good-hearted leader with 96 daughters and one son.
To the daughters he gives exactly 12 seconds of attention per day, while to the son he gives much more. (Big surprise, the son just wants to be left alone to do his own thing.) The Mayor tries to convince a skeptical Who-Ville city council that he is, in fact, talking to an elephant in the sky, concurrent with Horton trying to convince his jungle friends that he’s communicating with a tiny city on a speck of dust.
Nuances are present in the movie that aren’t in the book. The kangaroo’s curious son, instead of being complicit, voices dissent to his mother’s crusade. A hyperactive mouse named Morton, not present at all in the Seuss original (voiced by Seth Rogen), helps Horton out as one of the few who believe his tale of the tiny city. The additions are all very Seuss-ian. Names of new characters, like Sally O’Malley and Dr. Mary Lou Larue, say it all.
And Jim Carrey. Oh, Jim Carrey. Devoid of any of his ’90s campiness, his playful voicing of Horton the elephant is as enriching and lovable as Robin Williams’ Genie in Aladdin 16 years back.
Horton Hears a Who! is one of those kids movies undeniably fun for children and parents alike. Co-director Jimmy Hayward first cut his teeth on Toy Story, and it shows in this wonderful adaptation.
Weirdly enough, Horton was adapted by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, the dudes who wrote the screenplays for movies like Bubble Boy, The Santa Clause 2, and College Road Trip. Dr. Seuss is a strange place for them to succeed, but if this is what they’ve come up with, then jeez, I hope they write The Lorax next.
To sum up: Hey, parents, they finally made a modern Dr. Seuss movie that’s good. And it isn’t just good-it’s truly great. Go see it with your kids as quickly as possible.
Everybody else, if there was ever a point in time when you loved Dr. Seuss, ditch the other crap coming out this weekend and go see Horton Hears a Who! instead.