The Lorax (Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda, 2012) Review

I think this is a part of childhood I must have missed. Of course I'm familier with Dr. Seuss and his stories...most of his stories. I know The Cat in the Hat, The Grinch, Horton Hears and Who and someothers but The Lorax proves to be unknown territory for me as I never read the story and am therefore going into this film completely unaware of what will happen. Also I wanted to see more of Ed Helms and I figured this would be a good place to start.

In a world where no trees grow, a young boy named Ted (Zac Efron) wants to impress his dream girl, Audrey (Taylor Swift), by finding a tree seed and bringing them back to the world. To do so, he must go out into the unknown wilderness and find a man named The Once-ler (Ed Helms). The Once-ler agrees to tell Ted about the trees and with that, we are presented with a flashback of the young Once-ler arriving in a forest guarded by a mystical creature known as The Lorax (Danny DeVito).

I REALLY want to like this film. I think that The Lorax and The Once-ler are great and enjoyable characters and I enjoyed their story very much as it's visually stunning with an excellent look at someone's decent into darkness as well as social commentary of corrupt businesses and deforestation...for about half the film! Nope, sadly this great story is sidelined by some generic crap with Zac Efron trying to woo Taylor Swift against a bland and boring villain. If someone shortened the film to just focus on The Once-ler's story, then I think I would like this film but, as it stands, I do not.

This is such a nice film to look at (well, The Once-ler's story is anyway) and I feel sorry for those who saw it in 3D. Not because they wasted extra money but because of the darkened image. You have to see this with the colour at it's fullness in order to see the great visuals. Something that the marketing kind of forgot is that this is also a musical...just thought I'd add that. How are the songs? Mostly forgetabble but one especially stands out as catchy as hell. 'How Bad Can I Be' offers some amazing visuals, great performance from Ed Helms (this makes up for a lack of song in The Hangover Part III) and does a good job of pushing the narrative along.

The Lorax is a film that I really want to like as I thoroughly enjoyed all the scenes with The Lorax and the Once-ler. If you are going to watch this, just skip through the stuff about Ted and Threedville. It's a pointless waste of time that ruins the great flashback story. Ed Helms and Danny DeVito are great in their roles and try their hardest to save the film...sadly they failed...

Verdict:
5.5/10
I love the story with the Once-ler and Lorax but the rest ruins everything!

but if someone were to shorten it to JUST the Once-ler scenes then it would be
6.5/10