A new rhyming review

SDG here with my new Seussian review of Horton Hears a Who (opening today).

My habit of reviewing Dr. Seuss adaptations in Seussian anapestic tetrameter began eight years ago with the Jim Carrey How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which I felt deserved to be trashed, if not in the good Doctor’s own voice, at least in a reasonable facsimile thereof.

A couple of years later I continued the conceit with Scooby-Doo, this time writing to the tune of the well-known Scooby-Doo theme song. (This approach permitted only 24 lines in a very limited meter, so I cheated by adding line-by-line annotations. However, it did allow me to sing a review on the air.)

Then the following year I went back to Seussian verse for the Mike Myers The Cat in the Hat.

This time, though, my Horton review is a bit different from these previous efforts.

How?

Three ways: First, the first three were all of live-action films; this one’s a computer-animated cartoon. Second, the earlier Seuss adaptations were both Universal; this one is 20th Century Fox.

Neither of those is the big difference, though (although the big difference is certainly impacted by the first, and possibly by the second).

So what’s the big difference with this review?

IT’S POSITIVE. Never got to recommend a movie in verse before.

Enjoy!

16 thoughts on “A new rhyming review”

  2. I loved Horton as a kid. Then it just disappeared from television, unlike the Grinch that went on to Holiday Classic status.
    After a while it occurred to me that maybe the message just made some entertainment movers-and-shakers too uncomfortable.
    It’s a great story, and I’m very heartened to read your positive review. Now I think about it, I haven’t taken my daughter to a movie in a while…

  3. I love the pro-life protest that happened at the premiere of Horton.

    I’m not clear there was much of a “protest” at all, as opposed to a demonstration. Certainly the demonstrators don’t seem to have been “protesting” the movie — on the contrary, they seemed to want to claim the story as their own. It sounds to me like a pro-Horton, pro-movie, pro-life demonstration rather than a “protest” (as per, e.g., The Da Vinci Code).
    Incidentally, so far I have yet to see the media refer to the “protesters” as “anti-abortion”; the usual censoring of the term “pro-life” seems to have wavered or something. THAT’S pretty cool, I think.

    Now I think about it, I haven’t taken my daughter to a movie in a while…

    I went with my two older boys and my younger daughter, and we had a lot of fun.

  4. I am so VERY happy to hear this one received a positive review. All of my nephews and neices have been looking forward to this one and it’s good to know that I can actually take them to a childrens movie without worrying that it will turn out to be child unfriendly!

  5. We just saw it. We didn’t appreciate the Kangaroo mom was cast as a homeschooling. She was, besides the bird, the only “evil” or “nasty” character.
    Our 3yo lost interest about halfway but that is quite normal.
    Other than that fact about downing homeschooling, we liked it.

  6. Yeah, I noted that “pouch-schooling” thing in my review. In fairness, it is only one throwaway line. It’s a stupid line, because the kangaroo is exactly the sort of person most homeschoolers are trying to protect their children from.
    And, having said that, as nasty as the kangaroo is, I appreciated the very, very end of her interactions with Horton.

  8. Actually, it looks like this story was unintentionally anti-abortion.

    I am aware that both Seuss and his widow have opposed the political use of “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” (Horton also says that the tiny Whos “have as much right to live as us bigger folk do.”)
    It doesn’t matter. The story IS pro-life — and intentionally so. Apparently, Geisel just didn’t realize that the pro-life meaning he DID intend entailed an anti-abortion implication he DIDN’T intend.
    Maybe. But factor in Horton’s other adventure, Horton Hatches the Egg, which explicitly and unequivocally involves embryonic life (in this case an unhatched bird in an egg) abandoned by the mother but cared for by Horton, and I think it becomes very, very difficult to completely rule out that on some level Seuss may have been aware of the larger implications of his character’s pro-life leanings.

  9. Oh, I think you’re right about that. Interesting that it was an elephant (and not a donkey) that was “faithful 100%” to the tiny people. This is one reason I’m careful about using the term “pro-life”. The story was intentionally pro-life, but only unintentionally anti-abortion.

  10. Once again, Steven, you’ve outdone youself. Reviews like this one are the reason that I continue to recommend your website to everyone trying to decide what movie to watch.

  12. Um, Scooby-Doo was a Warner Bros. release, not Universal.

    Ha! Of course you’re right — that error in my review must go back to before Decent Films went CMS, and every review was a hand-coded html file modified from a copy of another file. Thanks, I’ll fix it!

  13. I just got back from the movie with my kids. Like others, I did not appreciate the comments of the Kangaroo regarding “pouch schooling”
    Over-all it would be difficult to have a more powerful apologetic against materialism than this movie. It touches Catholic sensibilities in a positive way on so many different levels. This is one of the first films in a long time that really did a good job of putting forward a positive message in a really powerful way. AND the kids loved this movie!

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