A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Horton Hears a Who!

Date Viewed: 3/15/08

Details:

Voice talent: Jim Carrey (Horton)

Steve Carell (The Mayor of Whoville)

Carol Burnett (Kangaroo)

Will Arnett (Vlad)

Isla Fisher (Dr. Mary Lou Larue)

Charles Osgood (narrator)

Directors: Jimmy Hayward & Steve Martino

Score: +

The Review:
I meant what I said,
And I said what I meant;
An elephant's faithful
One hundred percent.

Call me Seuss-ian. Somewhere in my youth I discovered these books in the children's section of our town library and devoured every one I could uncover. I even ventured back in high school, a bit surreptitiously, to reread my favorites -- McElligot’s Pool and Bartholomew and the Oobleck -- because that's what libraries are for, aren't they? When Chuck Jones did the TV animations for How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Horton Hears a Who! (even though I didn't appreciate it was him, at the time), I fell in love with them all over again -- cadence, whimsy, imagination -- the power of words. So far I've managed to avoid the more recent live versions with Mike Myers (The Cat in the Hat) and Jim Carrey (The Grinch), so I was a bit hesitant when I heard Carrey was going to be cast as Horton. But, I figured, "it's animation, and that will allow me ignore what I need to." I needn't've worried.

For those of you who don't know, have acquired premature Alzheimer's, or just never picked up a book with a silly title -- Whoville is a self-contained town of very, very tiny people called "Who's" (one might say this violates certain quantum intelligence size restrictions) living on a miniscule dust mote currently attached, for the purposes of this story, to a purple clover-like fuzz ball being paraded around proudly in the prehensile trunk of eccentric elephant Horton (Carrey) because he thinks he heard someone (the Mayor, as it turns out, exasperated: Carell) cry out from the dust mote. Of course, he's right -- and of course, no one believes him -- and Horton's expulsion from the tribe, and persistence and determination in the face of uniform ridicule, only inspire the surrounding community to depths of McCarthyism. This is no mere hyperbole, since I can easily imagine some of Kangaroo's diatribe (Burnett) coming directly from the mouth of the Senator himself. That's downright scary -- and chilling, when you hear the lines spoken -- even though my memory is that the book itself had a simpler, kinder message ("a person's a person no matter what size!").

The animation is what we've come to expect -- exquisite, attractive, imaginative. Dr Seuss was the master of unusual critters, and he is done well by the crew in attendance to Horton -- I particularly like the lemming-like fur ball who occasionally inhales too deeply and starts floating. (Don't worry about the physics; enjoy!) Considering that almost all the characters appear to have mammal-like tendencies, there are extensive R&D credits for "fur."

There aren't that many G-rated movies these days, and even fewer that are not pabulum for the pre-kindergarteners and actually have some wit and multi-level (read: multiple generations) humor. This one's not bad.

(15-Mar-08)

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