Lorax, The (1972)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Surprisenly effective "warning" film from Dr. Seuss starts off by showing a wasteland where there's pretty much nothing left. A young boy wonders onto the scene asking what happened and then we flashback to a time where trees were everywhere. A greedy businessman starts to cut all the trees down and doesn't take the advice of the Lorax who thinks it's best to save the trees. Going into this movie I was a little worried that we'd just have a boring, preachy film but that wasn't the case at all. In fact, I think you could make a very strong argument that this here is one of the best Seuss adaptations to come from this era. As you expect the animation is extremely beautiful, full of wonderful detail and is so pleasant on the eyes you can't help but get drawn into it. Just check out the scene where a duck flies into some polluted air and you'll see the creative ways that they used the colors to help tell the story. Another major plus are the characters with the Lorax character coming off extremely entertaining. I also loved the greedy guy and really liked the fact that we never get to fully see him. The story itself is certainly a message-driven one but I appreciate the fact that they didn't beat you over the head or preach to you. Instead they just told a good story and got the message across that way.
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Surprisenly effective "warning" film from Dr. Seuss starts off by showing a wasteland where there's pretty much nothing left. A young boy wonders onto the scene asking what happened and then we flashback to a time where trees were everywhere. A greedy businessman starts to cut all the trees down and doesn't take the advice of the Lorax who thinks it's best to save the trees. Going into this movie I was a little worried that we'd just have a boring, preachy film but that wasn't the case at all. In fact, I think you could make a very strong argument that this here is one of the best Seuss adaptations to come from this era. As you expect the animation is extremely beautiful, full of wonderful detail and is so pleasant on the eyes you can't help but get drawn into it. Just check out the scene where a duck flies into some polluted air and you'll see the creative ways that they used the colors to help tell the story. Another major plus are the characters with the Lorax character coming off extremely entertaining. I also loved the greedy guy and really liked the fact that we never get to fully see him. The story itself is certainly a message-driven one but I appreciate the fact that they didn't beat you over the head or preach to you. Instead they just told a good story and got the message across that way.