Movie Review - Horton Hears a Who

Let me start off by saying: I'm not this film's intended audience.

Both my kids are teenagers and I'm nearing 40.

Now, with that in the open, let's talk about Horton Hears a Who in specific and Seuss adaptations in general.

I grew up on Dr. Seuss. When I had kids, the majority of the Seuss books we read to them were from my childhood collection that my parents had saved. I grew up listening to Seuss, learned to read on Seuss and taught my kids to read with Seuss. In short, I'm a big Theadore Geisel fan.

So, it should be no surprise that one of the first DVD's I bought my kids was How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I grew up on this movie. Even though I grew up Jewish, it was tradition to watch this movie on TV whenever it came on.

So, it was with much anticipation that I watched both The Grinch and Cat in the Cat on cable when they came out. And, with both, I had the same reaction: I felt both were horrid, self indulgent interpretations of Seuss that were better off having never been made.

Now, I'll be the first to admit, Jim Carrey doesn't do it for me most of the time. His persona that he adopts of the out of control, over the top characters is the type of comedy I hate the most. Adam Sandler has fallen into that category a lot as has Mike Myers. So, it's probably not too surprising that I couldn't even finish watching the Grinch. Fortunately, the director of Horton Hears a Who reigned in Carrey in his voicing of Horton. There's not a single "All Righty Now" to be found in his performance and the movie is much stronger for it.

Steve Carrell is another person who I've gotten little from any of his performances. Yes, his Roast of George Bush at the White House Press Corps dinner was brilliant, especially with the looks on Dubya's face that he clearly didn't get half the jokes. His performance in Bruce Almighty was something I didn't care for, but some of that may simply have been my general negative reaction to Jim Carrey's part in that movie as well. Now, I'll be the first to admit, I haven't seen Dan in Real life and want to, I don't watch The Office and I didn't think I could suffer through Evan Almighty, especially since it was, essentially Bill Cosby's "Right" made in film.

As the Mayor of Whoville, Carrell did just fine. His "I'm confused" character at the beginning was well meaning as voiced and, as the story progressed, his role became stronger as did his character.

I have to say, I loved the concept of a "goth" Jojo. They gave Jojo a back story that worked well and he essentially went goth in reaction to dad pushing him to be a mayor when he grew up.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie. I had several belly laughs during it and the story was good.

I do have some small quibbles with the movie.

1. The Animation: I like animation. I appreciate it for the technical aspects and the way it looks. As technology improves, so does animation. But, it gets to the point where it's too slick, too polished. There's a few spots where they go for photo realism in Horton and it just doesn't work. They needed to dumb down the animation on this film and make it, for lack of a better term, less shiny.

2. The pacing: This movie had strange pacing. It was a movie with heart. There were action scenes that were paced well, but, in contrast to the rest of the film, they felt like they broke up the flow of the film.

Both of these concerns are not something I suspect the intended audience would notice, but, I did.

Still, in the end, I was entertained.