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Ervell E. Menezes finds Dr Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! a laboured tale
Beginning on that premise, Horton (Jim Carrey’s voice) is an elephant, who on a hot summer’s day is beating the heat by splashing about in a pond in the jungle of Nool when he hears a small noise which comes from a tiny speck of dust floating in the air. Although Horton doesn’t know it yet, that speck houses an entire city named Who-ville, inhabited by microscopic Whos, led by the Mayor (Steve Carell). Despite being ridiculed and threatened by the neighbours, who think he’s lost it, Horton is determined to save the particle because "a person’s a person, no matter how small." Well, that’s the gist of the story and scriptwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio put together a rather laboured tale of 90 minutes that takes us through all kinds of corny situations to bring home the message of caring for something, however small. And though directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino resort to some choice visuals initially like the drop of water sliding down a leaf, the narrative wades through considerable piffle much and the thinly-fleshed key characters do not really help. That they are voiced by big stars makes little difference bringing in oldie Carol Burnett with newcomers Carrey and Carell, recently in Dan in Real Life, doesn’t make an iota of difference. One follows the action, not the voices. The Mayor’s 96 daughters and one son Jojo (dumb for most of the film) provide some cute sets and a trickle of laughs like the kangaroo’s (Carol Burnett) line "the jungle is no place to act like an animal." But you just cannot escape the usual below-the-belt jokes "in my world they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies." True, animation has touched new heights these days and The Lion King is a prime example. But not in Dr Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! where they seem to fall between two stools. The creation of Who-ville is at best fair but the anecdotes are rather lacklustre and even children will find it hard to sit right through this one. There is no real cumulative build-up or enduring theme. So when the message finally comes across, along with the elephants being faithful 100 per cent et al, it is scarcely worth waiting for. Content is more important than form.
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Saddled
with as vague a title as Dr Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! it
surely begs some explaining. The doctor is supposed to be a well-known
American cartoonist-storyteller who is believed to simplify complex
subjects so that they appeal to all ages.