The Lorax

There are a ton of movies I want to see this year; Brave, Men in Black 3, The Hobbit, The Dark Knight Rises - it's shaping up to be a good year for the entertainment industry. I kicked off my theater experience with the latest Dr. Seuss book become moving picture, The Lorax.

I can see why critics are so split with it; personally, I enjoyed it, would go again, will probably pick up the DVD. The animation is colorful and very Seuss-ish and the songs were surprisingly catchy (for a non-Disney animated film especially). The movie is split into two stories, one following the story we already know from the book in which our main lead is the Once-ler. The other expands the framing device from the book and follows Ted, who has come to hear the Once-ler's story to discover what happened to the trees.

I'll conceed that the universe the framing device is built around is interesting and I do like some of the satirical touches on modern society. I'll even admit that the film does a good job of not being too preachy about saving the environment. But, I do wish the focus was more on the Once-ler's tale. They did a good job of keeping the two stories seperate, yet tied together, but protaganist Ted just wasn't that interesting for me. Granted, the Lorax isn't that intriguing a character either, but even though the title belongs to him the best parts of the story belong to the Once-ler.

I'm not out to do a film critique here so I'll keep it simple - the Once-ler is the only one with a substantial character arc and genuine moral/internal conflict. Ted does all the running around the big evil business to bring back the trees, but that's all it is; it's physical conflict and black and white morality. This is why I wish the movie had delved deeper into the Once-ler's side of things. His moral choices are considerably greyer and the family relationships really muck it all up, but perhaps I'm expecting too much of a children's film based on a Dr. Seuss book.

TL;DR - Good animation, cute in the right places, plays it serious when needed as well, Ted is boring, Once-ler is awesome.