THE LORAX (G)
When: March 29
Where: General release
Preview: Jan Fisher
HE is the Lorax and he speaks for the trees. But now he is part of a huge money-making machine called The Movies, and in The Movies things don’t always follow the original story.
Fans of Dr Seuss will recognise the tale; an ambitious industrialist destroys the environment in pursuit of profit while disregarding the mysterious Lorax’s warnings. Despite never being much of a Dr Seuss fan, it made quite an impression on me as a child. As the cheery pages dotted with gorgeous truffula trees and appealing animal life gradually transform into the grim, grey wasteland created by the
Once-ler, even wilfully ignorant sub-teens such as myself could not help but be affected.
Things aren’t quite as hopeless in The Lorax movie, but maybe that’s one of its faults. The story centres around a young boy called Ted (voiced by Zac Efron) who is suffering from a crushing, well, crush on Audrey (Taylor Swift). They live in a sterile manufactured world, where even the plants need an electrical lead and the resulting monumental pollution is kept a deep dark secret by the sinister company running the town. In his quest to provide nature-loving Audrey with a real, live tree, and thanks to a tip-off from his batty grandmother (Betty White), Ted discovers the Once-ler (Ted Helms) and the story of The Lorax (Danny DeVito) and the reality of both of their worlds is laid bare.
But this is The Movies, so a massive chase scene is in order, the loved-up youngsters work things out, the baddies cop a butt-kicking and, thanks to those crazy kids’ efforts, proper trees look like making a comeback. And herein is the problem with this movie. It’s unsatisfactory as a cautionary tale and the subject matter – our rapacious industrialisation and consumer greed will destroy the planet – makes it an odd choice for children’s ‘entertainment’. As such, the movie falls a little bit in the middle.
But I suspect my misgivings will be lost on the target audience. Let’s face it, kids go nuts for chase scenes, love lots of block colours and are puzzled by anything other than a happy ending. The Lorax should go right off with under-12s.
