“A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean,” penned Dr. Seuss. Throughout his book “The Lorax,” Seuss gently nudged at the topic of being more environmentally cautious. While the most recent film version has that same underlying message, it approaches it in a bigger, though not necessarily better way.
12-year-old Ted (Zac Efron) lives with his family inside the picture perfect town of Thneedsville, run by the sinister Mr. O’Hare (Rob Riggle). The town is perfect, with one exception: Thneedsville has no living trees. Plastic blowup trees line the artificial lawns of Thneedsville’s citizens and O’Hare rakes in a large profit selling bottled oxygen to the townspeople. Everyone gets along merrily until Audrey (Taylor Swift), Ted’s neighbor/crush, reveals to Ted how badly she wants to have a tree for herself. Ted brings this problem to his grandmother (Betty White), who tells him to find the “Once-ler” who lives outside of town.
The Once-ler turns out to be a grumpy hermit who lives in the wastelands outside of town. He tells Ted the story of the Lorax (Danny DeVito), a magnificently mustached orange creature (like DeVito) and guardian of the forest. Once-ler’s visions of greed led to all the trees in the area being destroyed to make his Thneed products; in the process he lost the respect of the Lorax and drove away to animals that lived in the area. Armed with a gift from Once-ler, it is up to Ted now to bring back Thneedsville and the forests to what it used to be.
“The Lorax” as a book was fine. It did exactly what Seuss wanted it to do.
“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.”
And that was that; the orange fuzzball with the awesome mustache was called the Lorax, he spoke for the trees and “won’t you please stop chopping them please.” Readers of all ages took the message and its simplicity.
This movie adaptation was not the best. The technical aspects were nice; the illustrations were Seuss-worthily rendered in bright and poppy colors. The characters, while enjoyable, were weighed down by over-used slapstick jokes and antics. Seuss, had he written and directed the film, would have found other ways to spruce up the humor.
All that aside, my main beef with the movie was its hypocrisy. “The Lorax” preaches about how companies are greedy, terrible things and how we must save the world and kumbayah. Funnily enough, its marketing team decided to invest in dish- washer detergent and other corporate products for advertising. I’m smart enough to realize that corporations are not people, but come on.
Double standard, much? It’s not a terrible movie by any means,but I think that the writers should have let up on the perils of deforestation and of corpora- tions, focusing instead on what is and should be; a Dr. Seuss book with a short, but sweet message for readers of all ages.
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
