A&E

Film review: ‘The Lorax’

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And out of that cute orange character comes … Danny DeVito’s voice!

The Details

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
Directed by Chris Renaud
Rated PG
Beyond the Weekly
Official Movie Site
IMDb: The Lorax
Rotten Tomatoes: The Lorax
Voices of Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift

There’s not nearly enough material in any of Dr. Seuss’ children’s books to adapt into a feature film, but that didn’t stop the makers of movie versions of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Cat in the Hat and Horton Hears a Who. The Lorax is the latest Seuss tale to get the big-screen treatment, and its whimsical, melancholy story is stretched beyond its breaking point in order to fill out the running time.

Director Chris Renaud and screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul (the team behind Despicable Me) augment Seuss’ environmentalist fable with a framing sequence about a teenager (voiced by Zac Efron) trying to impress a girl (Taylor Swift), which is more distraction than enrichment. And absent most of Seuss’ charmingly absurd rhymes and wordplay, the lessons come off as much more clumsy and heavy-handed. The animation is lovely, with some cleverly designed locations and characters, but it isn’t enough to prop up the threadbare plot.

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