Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. One way or another, I’m seeing this one with Toshi and his little girlfriend Frannie and her folks as soon as it opens. He loves the spots, and I just hope the movie doesn’t make the Dr. Seuss fan in my cry. Fingers crossed this guy is right:
Hi there... If you run this review please just refer to me as Mister Zabladowski... Here’s my rebuttal of your previous review. Just watched the new version of Horton Hears a Who... As a long time Seuss fan who’s had his fingers or should I say eyes and ears.. and heart! burned one time too many watching terrible film adaptations, I was anticipating yet another disaster. Ok...The trailer looked promising, but that could easily be down to good editing. (Though to be fair, creating even 30 seconds of good trailer material from that Mike Myers Cat in the Hat remake must have been a daunting task.) But I had a funny feeling this adaptation would be good...there just seemed to be more respect for Seuss’ innocence and whimsy in the short preview clip. To start with, the animation is pretty good, not to say excellent. Similar to Ice Age’s CGI (so not as detailed and textured as Ratatouille for instance) and entirely appropriate in its styling and colour tones to the original material. In fact, the landscapes, architecture and characters were really beautifully rendered. Don’t forget, I’m a real Seuss fan so I’m not just saying this as someone who kind of likes any old CGI animated film. I get chills down my spine when I watch the Hans Conried’s Do Mi Do duds sequence in 5000 fingers, or the incredible basement ballet/orchestra scenes with their crazy instruments. (Even though Seuss himself was disappointed by 5000 Fingers’ film adaptation, I think that along with the original Grinch cartoon, these two films pretty much nail Seuss’ world). I was also really disappointed.. wrong word... disgusted with the Cat in the Hat. Vulgar, manic, hollow, so far from Seuss - completely soul-less .. or even dare I say it... predatory. I find it hard to belive Mike Myers wouldn’t have felt ashamed to have distorted such a beloved character with such a self serving embarrassing comedy routine. Horton is different. Your previous reviewer talks about a few of the ‘contemporary’ references that have been added to the script (whospace, etc) but believe me these hardly register in the whole Horton experience. The heart of the film remains intact. Its story, its characters, its design and its soul still beat in time with Theodore Geisel’s. Really. Hey, my jaw dropped in disbelief 100 times or more during Cat in the Hat, through all those tired ‘modern’ and wanna be sassy catch phrases. But despite a few (very few and none of the smug delivery) of these in Horton, they really are very gentle nods; fair enough we could have done without them but they don’t interfere much. What I would agree with is that the 2-D animated sequences are completely pointless. The first bit drawn in a very Seuss style could easily have been dropped, it serves little purpose and jars stylistically, but its inoffensive. The NINJA segment however is pretty poor and might be the one time I thought “What the Heck is this doing here?”. With its bargain basement animation (think Power Puff Girls styling, but then imagine it animated by the guys who brought you Cinderella 2 ha ha) and modern day manga references, it seemed almost like an afterthought imposed by a worried and misguided exec. (Also, the montage would probably have been much funnier and effective in normal 3D CGI without the Manga references.) Thankfully, this bit only lasts 30 seconds so you can overlook it. Another off-putting sequence: the song at the end. Again, its so short you don;t get the time to hate it but I had just enough time to think that it was completely out of touch with the rest of the film. Its vaguely Celine-soft rock-disney sound just didn’t fit, and if a song really needed to be added, surely a very Seuss like number (like in 5000 fingers) or something more akin to the playful material in Corpse’s bride (not as dark obviously) would have been a better choice. But the rest is great. Whoville looks stunning, all the brilliant inventions, instruments, creatures, trees, mechanisms etc.. they’re all there and beautifully executed. You really wish you could stop the film and go for a walk around to properly appreciate these finer details. Its in seeing Seuss’ imagination come alive, replete with all these loveably crazy beings, that you realise how rich his world was and how wrong it is to veer away from it. When you have this wondrous source material, shouldn’t you be humbled to even be able to play with it? I felt the team who worked on Horton really must have felt a bit like that because they’ve succeeded where so many people have failed. And I’m sure Dr Seuss’s widow, Audrey Geisel, who’d banned any further live action adaptations of Seuss’s films after seeing The Cat in the Hat, will finally feel that - for the most part - someone has finally managed to capture the essence of Seuss and better still, make a film which will hopefully open the eyes of a whole new generation to the wonder and charm of such an incredible author. Mister Zabladowsi
