Horton Hears a Who!

by Gary Sundt

As Printed in The Lumberjack on March 27, 2008 

Readers rejoice! After the streak of negative reviews, which have included Rambo, The Eye, Vantage Point, Bachelor Party 2 and the remarkably bad 10,000 BC, a film has come to save us from the horrors of January through March movie-going. The title is Horton Hears a Who!, and it’s an animated, G-rated flick inspired by the classic childrens book by Dr. Seuss. 

I want to start off by simply stating that I liked this movie a whole lot. The flick is rated G, and thus has none of the things that made up those aforementioned titles. No explosions, no blood, no guts, no guns, no ghosts, no blind chicks, no naked chicks and no prehistoric mascara. What Horton has is a good story, a phenomenal cast, an amazingly original world and a huge heart. It even has a good message, which is strikingly absent from those other films. 

Horton tells the tale of Horton (Jim Carrey), an elephant who lives in the Jungle of Noob. While teaching some young animals about jungle life, our hero hears a cry for help coming from a speck of dust. He decides he must save this world he cannot see, which drives his neighbors to torment him. Leading the pack is Kangaroo (Carol Burnett), who fears Horton’s ranting will inspire the young ones in the jungle to start using their imaginations. Horton must fight through the forces of nature and his fellow animals to get this speck to safety, because “after all, a person’s a person, no matter how small.” 

The microscopic community that lives on this speck is none other than Dr. Seuss’ very favorite town, Who-ville. The voice of panic heard by Horton belongs to The Mayor of Who-ville (Steve Carrell), who has enough troubles with his 96 daughters and one emo son Jo-Jo (Jesse McCartney) without having to worry about his world being a speck in constant peril.When Horton informs him of his predicament, our littler hero goes on his own mission to keep the town safe. But his wife Sally O’Malley (Amy Poehler) and rest of the community don’t believe the wild claims of a guy who talks to an invisible elephant in the sky, so its Horton and The Mayor against the worlds trying to keep the town of Who-ville intact. 

In hindsight, the plot seems pretty complicated. But worlds-within-worlds will obscure even the most simple of tales. That said, Horton Hears a Who! is a remarkably easy story to follow for kids, adults, stoners and everyone in between. The film is incredibly sweet, and never becomes a sugar-rush due its remarkable sense of humor. And this movie is funny. I laughed a lot. The cast includes many current greats in comedy, including Carrell, Carrey, Burnett and Poehler, as well as Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill of Superbad fame. They all work at the best of their voice abilities, and bring sugar-coated fun to the kids and solid laughs to adults. 

However, the funniest player in the movie is a 9-year-old girl named Joey King, who plays an Awesome Little Yellow Thing (ALYT) named Katie. I don’t know what ALYT was supposed to be, but it sure was funny. Describing its behavior is impossible, but I offer a line of dialogue: “In my world, everybody’s a pony, and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!” If that isn’t genius, I don’t know what is. 

ALYT is only one of the many strange creations in Horton Hears a Who! In fact, the sheer originality of the project’s design makes it the most Seussian of the author’s film interpretations. Everything in this flick looks and feels like it came out of famous word-maker-upper’s head. After the lackluster How the Grinch Stole Christmas and the abysmal Cat in the Hat, Horton hits the loopy and strange nail on the twisted and wild head. 

Horton still has some interesting flaws, all of which are a result of extreme deviations from Seuss’ original text. The emo-kid story line didn’t really do it for me, simply because it was underdeveloped and convoluted. The script by Ken Dario and Cinco Paul goes out of its way to make some political statements that mostly fall on deaf ears. Also, the cast’s random rendition of REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Stop This Feeling” seemed random and perhaps a bit too Shrek-like. 

However glaring these problems may be, they don’t really detract much from the overall experience. Directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino have crafted a flick worth watching, and have shed a hopeful light on future Seussian interpretations (c’mon Lorax!). 

To wrap this thing up, here’s some lousy Seussian rhymes: There are lots of bad movies, of that I am sure, and watching them causes my stomach to stir. Vantage Point sucks, 10,000 BC does too, so what is a moviegoer to do? If you want a movie that’s funny and neat, Horton Hears a Who! is pretty freakin’ sweet. Horton is awesome, with that there’s no doubt, so stop reading this review, and go check it out.

That’s it. I’m done. I promise.Never again.