Horton Hears a Who!: Energetic and Infectiously Amusing review
"Horton Hears a Who!" isn't a laugh-a-minute animated comedy, but comes with enough uproarious scenes to be worth recommending to anyone flocking to cinemas for a laugh, writes Tom Elce
Despite the genius of his books, the most recent adaptations of Theodor S. Geisel's famus works have failed to recapture the magic of his oddball stories. Jim Carrey-starrer "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" divided audiences whereas the Mike Myers-starring "The Cat in the Hat" was pretty much universally regarded as garbage. So approaching another adaptation of his work feels more cautious than it should have done. Thankfully, I'm happy to report that the animated "Horton Hears a Who!" is about the best Dr. Seuss adaptation we've seen in quite a while, maintaining the spirit and infectiousness of the cartoonists' beloved book-of-the-same-name while conveying it's message of accepting diversity.
Eternally happy Horton (voiced by Jim Carrey) is astonished when his everyday jungle life is bizarrely interrupted one day when he astonishingly hears a voice coming from a speck of dust floating by his ears. Capturing it soon after on a clover, Horton makes the shocking discovery that upon the speck lies the miniature land of Whoville, a town of Whos who live in homes, go to work, go to school and generally enjoy their carefree lives unaware that a whole other world exists on the other side of the clouds in their sky. Amazed at his discovery, Horton informs his fellow jungle inhabitants with
little success. For one, the narrow-minded Kangaroo (voiced by Carol Burnett) initially mocks Horton's claims that an entire land exists on a minor speck of dust, before insisting that Horton has gone completely insane and hiring wannabe-villain Vlad the Black Bottomed Eagle (voiced by Will Arnett) to do her evil bidding. Meanwhile, Horton, with the helpless assistance of The Mayor of Whoville (voiced by Steve Carell), makes his way to an isolated mountain, where he believes Whoville will be able to exist undisturbed.
"Horton Hears a Who!" is one of those delightful animations that comes with a message viewers can believe in. "A person's a person no matter how small," Horton insists to Sour Kangaroo, an important moral that won't go over the heads of the younger audience members. It is also backed up in the way the inhabitants of Whoville, however quirky they may be, are given their own livelihoods and aren't just painted as the typical subplot they might otherwise have been in a lesser animation, such as the recent "Bee Movie," which spread it's ecological message centric on the work of bees without adding layers to any of it's winged characters outside of the lead one. Here, the Whos are written as surprisingly fleshed-out ones, the panicky Mayor Who-ville, a man who can only find a few seconds per child in his 97-strong offspring, standing out. In fact, the only time when "Horton Hears a Who!"s message is temporarily forgotten is in a misguided attempt at humour, wherein the Mayor of Who-ville, while showing his son pictures of his great ancestors, points out one photo of a male ancestor wearin a tu-tu and quickly describes him as not so great.
Horton meanwhile is an appropriately lovable protagonist. Voiced energetically by Jim Carrey, Horton is a brave and selfless hero that will undoubtedly cast a spell on the young audience members watching his quest to save a microscopic world. His offbeat mannerisms, also, work a lovely spell on his audience, Horton proving himself a funny lead as well as a likable one.
"Horton Hears a Who!" isn't a laugh-a-minute animated comedy, but comes with enough uproarious scenes to be worth recommending to anyone flocking to cinemas for a laugh. An anime scene comes out of left field and works very well as Horton imagines himself a tough-guy superhero. Horton's explosive relationship with Sour Kangaroo (voiced memorably by Carol Burnett) is also handled excellently, the latter's bitterness standing dead-opposite Horton's sunnier outlook. "Horton
Hears a Who!" isn't a masterpiece of animation, but it is the strongest Dr. Seuss adaptation to come along in a while, an energetic and infectiously amusing animated film that should satisfy all audience demographics not attending for anything beyond a well-meaning 86 minutes.
[rating:3.5]
(1 vote)
