| 5 |
I can't really believe Carter and crew had six years to come up with this movie. Don't get me wrong, I liked it. It was a really good and slightly longer episode; and I always liked the episodes. I just would have thought with all of that time they could have written these characters a little better. Maybe the writers were out of practice.
Spoiler alert:
I truly don't think that after all the time Mulder and Scully had been on the lam and by all accounts in the beginning of the film created a really sweet and mature relationship that Scully would just say it's over because of his pursuit of this case...and his sincere belief that he needed her help. While I understand she had other concerns too, I just don't believe she would have thrown away such a hard fought love and relationship. And then he just accepted it! It was fairly ridiculous. What she said and what she did were, of course, not the same, because Scully can't leave Mulder to his own devices and he does need her. Can't the writers make her smart in all aspects of her life? Why just Science. Oh I remember, they don't write women that way for movies. I had hoped that Scully was an exception to that unfortunate hollywood rule.
Despite my frustrations on the relationshipo faux tension, overall this is well worth a trip to the theater. Probably more than once. But Carter really needs to get more review on his script next time. His stunted and overly dramatice adolescent views of relationships are too much on display when it comes to this particular movie.
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| 6 |
I was wondering when someone would get the idea that live action doesn?t work well for Dr. Seuss? vivid imagination. His landscapes are so completely alien, his characters so completely unnatural that the only way to enjoy it is through the world of animation, be it standard or computer-generated. The zany minds at Blue Sky Animation, the masters behind the Ice Age movies and the under appreciated Robots, seemed to get the memo and created one of their wildest worlds in Horton Hears A Who, which is also one of Dr. Seuss? most political stories.
Horton is an elephant and is voiced by Jim Carrey. He?s not the brightest bag of peanuts, but his big heart is infectious to the youngsters of his jungle, which seems to be ruled by the iron hand of Kangaroo (Carol Burnett). She?s the kind of soccer mom (not allowing her own kid out of the pouch) that always seems to ?know best? and has no problem telling everybody as such. One day, Horton hears screaming coming from a speck and saves it from drowning. As it turns out, it is an entire world, which is the town of Whoville. It?s mayor (Steve Carrell) is a loopy kind of fellow with 92-daughters and one son. When the world starts shaking and things seem to go topsy-turvy, he thinks something is really wrong. Soon, by chance, he hears Horton through a pipe. He creates a way to communicate and finds out the horrible truth. To make matters worse for him, no one believes him, including his wife (Amy Pohler) and the city council (who I suspect knows the Mayor is right, but are too afraid to accept it). He asks Horton to help find a safe place to put the speck and Horton knows of such a place. The problem is that Kangaroo finds Horton?s beliefs about the speck to be corruptive to the children, who are now showing symptoms of imagination, including her own child.
When the movie focuses on the ideas behind Seuss? work, the movie is purely amazing in it?s story telling, mixed with the crazy visual style that is faithful to the source. I didn?t just love the look and feel of Whoville, I was blown away. I loved how the characters interacted, especially the bond between Horton and the Mayor, and that we can believe these character?s nature and in their friendship. I especially loved the metaphorical undertones that were originally believed to be associated with the McCarthy era. But it also works in our own times where if you are not with us, you are with them. When Kangaroo rallies a mob to stop Horton, who has done nothing more than believe that ?a person is a person, no matter how small?, the fear tactics used are all the more familiar to a modern audience.
But the movie shoots itself in the foot when it steers away from these ideas, either for pop-culture references (as in WhoSpace) or when going for cheap visual gags (as when Horton fantasizes in 2-D anime-style circa Pokemon). And then there?s a terrible rendition of ?Can?t Fight This Feeling Anymore? that really doesn?t work at all. These are just plain cheap and not needed. It?s these kind of scenes that are put in when filmmakers have no faith that they can keep a modern audience (especially children) involved in topical films. It seems they forgot that films like Ratatouille and Finding Nemo are classics because they trusted the material and didn?t have to resort to clichés.
While the voice acting is incredibly impressive, especially in the unusually subdue Jim Carrey and the dead-on shtick of Steve Carrell, I?m even more impressed in their uses of voices like Will Arnett and Carol Burnett, who has to be one of the funniest women alive and is rarely seen outside small roles. She especially was perfect for Kangaroo since she does have the ability to sound like sugar laced with arsenic. Will Arnett might be known to a few people for his work on Arrested Development and a stock player in Will Farrell?s clubhouse, but he has been doing some amazing voice work in many animated features. Here, he is the voice of a Russian Buzzard who has a few screws loose.
Another contributing factor of the film is John Powell?s sublime score, which goes into overdrive as we get to the climax of the story. I love his whimsy in the kind of music he puts to the screen. Take the first scene where the speck is disrupted from it?s harmonious existence and how the score transists as the scene goes on.
All in all, this is a great family tale with deeper implications while offering a good time for all. It?s one of those movies I can see kids enjoying now and coming back to later to enjoy as adults on a completely different level. But that?s always been the signature of Dr. Seuss? stories. They turn, they churn, they tickle the mind. This story, in all it?s glory, will leave you in kind.
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