Having grown up in the UK it’s difficult to understand the Dr. Seuss series of books (since they were never popular here), yet that doesn’t stop Hollywood forcing his messages upon me to this day through the big screen version’s of his original children’s stories; with the latest bringing an environmental lesson, coming via the aid of the slightly forgotten, Danny DeVito.
Years ago, the Once-ler (Ed Helms, The Hangover) went to the Lorax’s (DeVito, Matilda) forest and plundered the trees for material for his clothing range. The Lorax went away and the Once-ler became a recluse, ashamed at what he done by damaging paradise and badly polluting his world. In the modern day, young Ted (Zac Efron, High School Musical) lives in an idyllic but wasteful plastic paradise of a hometown, and in an attempt to win the heart of his dear Audrey (Taylor Swift, Hannah Montana), he wants to bring a real tree to his hometown. Meeting the Once-ler and hearing his story, Ted sets off to not only get the girl, but to save the world!
Being frank, the casting on this film is a failure; since we’re dealing with a children’s movie, a lot of current teen sensations like Taylor Swift and Zac Efron feature and they stink the place out with their performances; sure the cast is aimed at a younger audience, but they don’t have the impact that someone older may have. Swift as Audrey doesn’t really display any conviction to her character, her voice acting os far from engaging, and moments of Efron’s performance make it sound like he’s going through puberty all over again.
Even DeVito, as the titular Lorax, is a misstep; someone with a stronger voice would have been better to boom out the Lorax’s demands, but have restraint to be gentler in other scenes; as DeVito, whilst serviceable, sticks to his one tone throughout, so you can’t really tell the difference between his angry and poignant scenes.
Being a kids’ film it has to have a good moral message behind it, and The Lorax promotes the environment (how chopping down trees and pollution is bad and we need to be greener); but the problem is, the message is at least 20-30 years old now, and nothing has been done to update the book’s original message from 1972. In that time we’ve had numerous advancements in green-living and energy, and surely it wouldn’t be so hard to change the Lorax’s character to fit the modern day? Also, when the Once-ler he has run out of trees to cut down, he still has one seed left to plant. So why not plant it and go on a tree repopulation scheme like many forestry projects do nowdays? Yes, this is a film aimed at children, but it should acknowledge that we’re doing better than at the time the book was released. Hearing “we can do even more and only you can help!” is an outdated and frustrating message.
The film also flies down an outstanding amount of plot holes; The Once-ler gets stinking rich from selling a scarf/snood/towel product thing, which needs the tree’s material from the Lorax’s forest, and when the forest runs out completely, he’s saddened by what he’s done (despite fuelling his ambitions, which is what he wanted to in the first place) and he fact his parasitic family leave him because there’s no more money to be earnt. Fair enough, except he hasn’t lost the money, he still has it, and he’s accomplished his goal from the start of the film! It’s a silly message trying to say greed is bad, but surely nowadays we should be applauding Once-ler’s ambition as a local kid come good, coming from nothing?
Also why does the Once-ler have to wait for Ted to come and inspire him to set the world right when he can do it anytime? It would absolve himself of the wrongs he’s done to the environment and bring back the Lorax. Actually, despite being the titular character, the Lorax was bloody useless; his only real power was appearing in rooms magically and “bringing the real person in you out” (or something like that, it’s not entirely clear).
What’s weird is that there’s some really interesting world building in The Lorax; the town of Thneedville is pretty to look at, and the all-plastic motif of the town is a great idea (particularly the blow up plastic flowers that rise every morning with a robotic bee to fly around screeching “buzz buzz!” systematically), even if it doesn’t make sense how a town made entirely of plastic with no organic matter can produce fruit and vegetables. Mind you, all of that is whitewashed by the ridiculously evil and fantastic O’Hare (Ron Riggle, The Other Guys), who has a monopoly on the fresh air in the town and keeps promoting plastics to keep his profits up.
Technically, it is a nice film to look at; there were moments of CGI greatness when the Once-ler removes the boards from his room for the first time in 50 years or so and gazes out over the horizon. The lighting from his room against his body, the shadow and the window frame is really amazing, and probably the best piece of CGI in a children’s film you’ll see this summer.
The film is set in the Dr. Seuss format; with weird gangly thin people appearing more often than not; and from what I know about his style of writing and artwork, it’s captured quite well for the big screen, though one thing they should have steeped away from is the rhyming couplets that appear in the script. Well, they actually do, but they keep going back to it now and again, and it’s so frustrating when it turns up again at random point when you think it’s finally gone away.
A very message-heavy movie, with not enough humour to brighten up proceedings, The Lorax uses a mismatched and lazy cast to promote an outdated message. The title character doesn’t even appear that much, nor influence events in the dull story which could have been prevented in two seconds. When you consider that, The Lorax doesn’t stand a chance against the big blockbuster guns which are out at the moment. Miss it.
Terry Lewis – @thatterrylewis.
