Film: The Lorax

GENRE: Animation/Family
RATING: PG for mild language
RUNTIME: 1 hour and 26 minutes
STARRING: Zac Efron (Hairspray, High School Musical)
Danny DeVito (LA Confidential) Ed Helms (The Office)
DIRECTORS: Chris Renaud (Despicable Me)
Kyle Balda (newcomer)
WRITER: Ken Daurio (Horton Hears a Who, Despicable Me)
PLOT: A boy looks for a tree to win over a girl but first he has to hear a story of how they became extinct in the first place.

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:
1 The Suess-ified world of Thneedville is very colourful and lively. The art direction is stellar, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from the folks at Despicable Me.
2 Why did they make this movie into a musical? The songs are noisy and unnecessary. Not one of them is memorable. And why did they give The Once-ler an electric guitar? Are they trying to attract the rock crowd? I'm confused and annoyed. Stick with acoustic at least.
3 Minions punching each other is funny, cuddly bears being thrown as footballs, not as funny. The bears were cute. The fish, however were trying to hard. Did not like their high voices.
4 Why did the villain Mr. O’Hare look like Gene Simmons? Was this intentional? I thought he would be providing the voice but instead it was Rob Riggle (The Hangover). Bizarre. Oh, and Taylor Swift is barely in this film. I thought they would justify her presence with a song about trees or something, but she didn't really sing that much. Maybe she was too busy recording music for the upcoming Hunger Games.
5 I haven't seen the original TV cartoon of The Lorax but I have a feeling it's better and shouldn't have been messed with. The makers of this film should have just stuck with their far superior Horton Hears a Who.

RECOMMENDATION: Wait for TBS
UPCOMING REVIEWS: Hunger Games