The Lorax

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
That's one of the very few rhymes left in this movie, although there's plenty more left in it. Enough left, anyway, to make the right freak out about it. How dare Hollywood making a movie denigrating captains of industry?


They might not have bothered. In 1971, when The Lorax was published, it was pretty far ahead of its time. To most, its save-the-Truffula-trees ideology must have seemed utterly daffy. But forty years later, it's the people who think saving the trees is daffy who look like idiots. So from a political standpoint, the movie's self-congratulatory tone feels a little like the guy who takes you aside at a party and tells you he's just discovered the abacus--and it's going to take the world by storm.


Thankfully, The Lorax has done a much better job than other Dr. Seuss adaptations of turning a few hundred words into a movie of 94 minutes (yes, I'm looking at you, The Cat in the Hat). Some of the padding is achieved through musical numbers, which are done well enough that I wish there were more of them. They're big, and bold, and modern, and they don't sound like they're begging to be in The Lorax--The Broadway Musical.


In the plastic city of Thneedville, where zeppelin-dwelling tycoon Mr. O'Hare sells people bottled air (he sells them something they can get for free, get it?) tween Ted (Zac Efron) is in love with the beautifully bemaned Audrey (Taylor Swift). She wants a tree, and he's going to get her one. You would too, if your beloved's locks were so beautifully rendered. Spurred on by his grandmother (the ubiquitous, luminous and hilarious Betty White), he goes in search of the Once-ler, who supposedly knows where they went.


There follows a kind of awkward plot structure in which the Once-ler (Ed Helms) narrates the story, in installments, of how greed and mommy issues drove him to become an evil tycoon and chop down all the trees. But it's punctuated with beautiful moments. When the Once-ler chops down his first Truffula Tree, all the animals build a ring of stones to bury it. That brought a tear to my California liberal eye, although I imagine it caused the Fox News team to roll theirs and wonder aloud how many trees died to print the script of The Lorax.


Visually, the movie is nice, although they've slipped visuals from Dr. Seuss's original artwork under the end credits, and added just a little three-dimensionality (if you see it with specs), and it's hard not to judge the movie harshly in retrospect, with a few exceptions. I've already mentioned Audrey's hair, and the Lorax, who actually looks not unlike Audrey's hair, is also very attractive. Watch the credits for the people responsible for the hair and cloth rendering, and give them a special round of applause. The birds and fish and bears are beautiful and speak volumes with their eyes. The humans look a little bulbous, and truthfully, they don't emote so much as bloviate.


I'm guessing I don't have to tell you there's a chase scene, Ted delivers a big eco-friendly lecture, and trees win out at the end. 


But I can't help thinking that if you're going to the political well, you might as well drink. And if you're going to end with the quote I began with, maybe you should give people a little push. On your way out of the theater, how are you going to make things better? Aside from singing "Let It Grow," which, mind you, will certainly make the world a little brighter all by itself? And hawking "Truffula Tree Approved" eco-friendly cars?


So take the little ones to see The Lorax. And then teach them to turn out the lights when they leave the room.