Rating:

I’ll be the first to admit I was skeptical about Horton Hears a Who. Theatrical adaptations of Dr. Seuss don’t exactly have the best track record, after all; How the Grinch Stole Christmas was lousy and The Cat in the Hat was an outright abomination before the Lord. Fortunately for moviegoers everywhere, I’m pleased to report that Horton is better than these by leaps and bounds.

The biggest reason Horton Hears a Who is a charming and enjoyable picture while the other Dr. Seuss movies suck out loud is that this one stays closest to the source material. Sure, Dr. Seuss worked in the genre of rhyming picture books for kiddies, but he was a genius nonetheless. The Grinch gave us pointless glimpses into the Grinch’s tortured past, The Cat in the Hat gave us disturbing images and Mike Meyers being totally horrifying in every way he could. But in this movie they don’t mess around making up all kinds of nonsense and bullcrappery. Thus, the story is lengthened without being padded, if you can dig that. It fills up the 90 minute running time without seeming stretched thin, but it also isn’t a stupid bunch of garbage.

In fact, this movie is very much not garbage. It’s charming and funny and delightful in the ways a good movie for kids should be. It’s youngster appropriate without being boring to the adults in the audience—a family film in the truest sense of the term.

Lending their voices to the characters are Jim Carrey as Horton the Who-hearing elephant, Steve Carell as the Who that Horton hears, and Carol Burnett as a bitchy kangaroo with a really big chip on her shoulder. All do a fine job, but I do think—and I promise you I never in a million years thought I would ever be saying these words—that Jim Carrey actually underperforms as Horton. Horton usually seems the least energetic character despite his animation being as full of life as everyone else’s, and it’s because Carrey’s performance is kinda flat. (I know, it’s like the world’s been turned upside down, right?) Periods of listlessness aside, his characterization is good, just not everything it might have been. Carell and Burnett, however, are in fine form in their respective roles and the supporting roles deftly add comedy and cuteness to the proceedings whenever they are called upon.

The greatest thing about the story of Horton is its message, summarized in an oft-repeated line taken straight from Seuss’ book: “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” All of us, old and young, like to hear from time to time that we matter, and so Horton’s steadfast devotion to the ideals of equality and fairness and basic rights for all people—even for people he didn’t know existed—touches something in our hearts.

Horton Hears a Who is thoroughly charming. It’s a good story inventively told, it delivers a moral without being either heavy-handed or condescending, and it comes out in the end as the best children’s movie I’ve seen in a number of years.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Easy Rider
• 2001: A Space Odyssey