Horton Hears A Who

Movie version of the classic Dr. Suess childrens book of the same title. This film is the 3rd Dr. Suess book to be made into a movie, the others being forgettable live action versions of "The Grinch That Stole Christmas" and "The Cat In The Hat". This time it's done 100% CGI, and Dr. Suess is made for computer animation. Blue Sky Animation Studios, the same studio that made the Ice Age movies (you'll get a trailer for "Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs") does a wonderful job with the sets, textures, character design and overall look of the film. The first view of "Whoville" caused one person next to me to say out loud "I want to go to Whoville!". It looks amazing. The animation is some of the best 3D animation you'll ever see. There's great usage of what animators call "squash and stretch", which basically means that the characters bodies and limbs squash and stretch to really exaggerate the movement, something used heavily in traditional 2D animation and starting to come into it's own in 3D.

It looked great, but now on to the most important part, story. It's evident that this was a 15 page book stretched into 90 minutes. That's not to say you won't be entertained the complete 90 minutes, but the strongest points are the beginning and ending. The middle kind of loses the heart of the movie, partly because the use of a great narrators voice disappears after the first 5 minutes...and returns for the final 5 minutes. Had that element been included more steadily, the heart of the story could've somewhat remained. There are also two scenes that, to me, take you out of the movie. Both are funny scenes but don't seem to fit. One is a weird morph into anime/japanimation world, and the other an odd musical number at the end. The voice cast, including Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell, do a great job, especially Carrell. All in all a worthy effort by Blue Sky. It looks amazing but once again, the story doesn't reach the "Pixar-level".

*** out of 4