The Lorax

Dr. Seuss is the greatest author of children's picture books. I say this because Dr. Seuss was responsible for some of the earliest childhood memories I still have. The Lorax (I have to admit) I only read a year ago, and that's because I work at a bookstore and can't resist an unread Seuss. My upbringing consisted more of Green Eggs and Ham, There's a Wocket in My Pocket, and Oh, The Thinks You Can Think! Even Seuss protégé P.D. Eastman had a few in there.

Only the blandest five-year-old couldn't love & appreciate the silliness of Seuss's dialogue, the wackiness of his characters and the shagginess of the plantlife in his rhyming, technicolor world. I loved his books when I was a child because I wanted to visit that world. Now that I'm an adult, I'm certain I want to live there permanently.

That's why, after seeing the new 3D adaptation of the Lorax by Chris Renaud & Kyle Balda, I was bothered to read Peter Travers' review in Rolling Stone, giving it only one star but still feeling that the underage idiot-fest Project X merited two and a half.

"Why does Hollywood keep screwing up the iconic work of Dr. Seuss?," Travers laments in the first sentence of his review, before bemoaning all the preceding Seuss films: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (correct), The Cat in the Hat (correct), and Horton Hears a Who (incorrect).

Rebuttal: I don't understand why he hated the additional characters (Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Rob Riggle & Betty White) that, in my opinion, gave the movie some much-needed freshness, something more than a three-dimensional, frame-for-frame remake of the 1972 television special that I'm guessing Travers would have preferred.

Complaint: "This 3D, animated, idiotically musicalized version of The Lorax thoroughly debases the genius of the good doctor's book, adding characters, twisting plot points, and replacing Seuss subtlety with Hollywood frenzy."

Rebuttal: The movie had the same amount of heart as the book, if not more. For all it's (appropriate) silliness, it still accurately illustrated the insidious & well-intentioned nature of corporate thinking ("growing the economy") and the merciless & unforgiving consequences it can have not just on the environment but on social conscience. As for "Hollywood frenzy," I have no idea what he's talking about. And what is "Seuss subtlety," anyway? Is it the kind of nuance found only in his books, crafted so artfully at a five-year-old's level of comprehension?

Complaint: "Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda direct strictly for short-attention spans on a fruit-loopy palette that made me want to puke."

Rebuttal: It's a movie for children with the added bonus of placating their hipster parents. You know what made me want to puke? Seeing Babel after he gave it four stars in 2006. Much deserved congratulations to a film with armed middle eastern children, a border patrol snafu and a naked Asian that wasn't half as socially conscious as a cartoon with singing fish. How's that for subtlety?

Travers can't see the forest for the trees (zing!), and he should stop letting some inflated opinion of Dr. Seuss's "art" cloud his judgment about a movie that (for me) was enjoyable, emotional & gave me more than I expected. I think he's forgetting that, when you're a child, you only love Dr. Seuss for the pictures and the rhymes. It's only when you become an adult that you can appreciate the message.