The Lorax

The impending “end-of-the-world” doom surrounding the year 2012 coincides fatefully with the release of Dr. Seuss’s latest film adaptation, the environmentally-minded The Lorax. That fitting backdrop, however, is only one of the reasons that the film has become year’s highest grossing over the past two weeks, as the story itself inspires the imagination as to the perceived, inevitable future of consumer culture.

Throughout the film, there’s an unavoidable tendency to associate The Lorax with other movies containing similar messages. The Lorax falls squarely into the category of post-An Inconvenient Truth animated features, preoccupied with the prospects of a resource-depleted future. Next to the prototype of WALL-E, The Lorax feels unsurprisingly dated, but the familiarity of Dr. Seuss is a big part of the film’s appeal. Similarly, the more tried and true members of the cast carry the humor of the film, with Danny DeVito, Betty White and Ed Helms all contributing. (Who better, by the way, to impersonate the midget-like Lorax than the squatty DeVito, with his always-too-earnest voice?) On the other hand, though, relative newcomers Taylor Swift and Zac Efron—who show up in a clear appeal to younger, teenage-heartthrob audiences—don’t do much at all to stand out.

In terms of its script, The Lorax is devoted to the Seuss original to a fault: there’s less fresh interpretation of the story here than there is basic rehashing. The largest point of departure, however, is the film’s optimistic modification of the book’s original ending—where Dr. Seuss leaves the boy in possession of the seed and the choice to replant it in a concrete community, the film leaves off with a cheerful song-and-dance celebration of a re-envisioned naturalist utopia.

The psychedelic, rainbow-colored animation hearkens to book’s 1971 origins, creating an entrancing style that also helps to distract from the gloom of the film’s environmentalist undertones. This effect works both ways, however, and the combination of radiant animation with a happy-go-lucky screenplay mostly just seems to lack depth, to the extent that The Lorax feels, at times, almost sickeningly idealistic and redundant. Ultimately, though, criticisms such as these are unlikely to drive viewers away; the youthful animation might even serve, among adult audiences, to excuse the film’s overly optimistic ending. After all, Dr. Seuss has always had an adept talent for bringing out the best in children, and the children in adults. And, more than just entertainment, perhaps that ability is also being levied at constructing a larger statement about the future of our world.

—Ashley Taylor