Shawn's Horton Hears A Who Review

2008 Movie #32 - Horton Hears A Who

Wow after January I have been doing really terrible at this whole prediction thing. Then again after January I've been doing terrible keeping up with this blog all together. Anyway, at the start of the month I predicted this would be one of the worst movies of the month. How wrong I was. This movie isn't really anything like I expected it to be. I assumed it would be a nonstop barrage of pop culture references and attempts to make the original book hip and shit for the current crowd. In the end however, not so much.

Sure there are a few pop culture things (a lame reference to "whospace", some hip hop music and a sing-a-long at the end) but for the most part, the movie stays fairly straight forward and goes for actual laughs, not just constant references to other things. There actually are some good laughs in this too. There are some very funny one-liners throughout and the whole thing is just a fun time.

The voice actors are across the board very good. One of the main things I was worried about with this one is that Jim Carrey would go into full on "Jim Carrey" mode and it would start to get irritating. However for the most part he stays pretty tuned down and the movie works great for it. Steve Carrell also does a great job as the mayor of Whoville. Seth Rogen has a small part but also has some of the best laughs, same goes for Will Arnett as a vulture.

It musn't have been easy to take a book that can't be more than a 5-10 minute read and make it into an 80 minute long movie but kudos to the writers they did a pretty damn good job with the task. The movie never feels padded out and at the same time feels very true to the original book.

Of course with any animated movie I have to mention the animation itself. In this movie it's just fantastic. Some scenes are just amazing to look at and some of the details they went into with the scenary and especially with the characters is quite simply incredible.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie and would definitely recommend it. In an age where kids movies are usually the bottom of the entertainment barrel, it's great to see one that gets it right. This is one both kids and adults can enjoy and that my friends, is getting rarer and rarer these days.

*** 1/2 /5