Day 33 - 02/02/2019

Year: 2008

Directors: Jimmy Hayward, Steve Martino

Writers: Cinco Paul (screenplay), Ken Daurio (screenplay), Dr. Seuss (based on the novel "Horton Hears a Who!")

Stars (voice): Jim Carrey, Steve Carell

Worldwide Box-Office Gross: $297,138,014

Budget: $85,000,000 (estimated)

Country: United States

  From the same director of Ice Age: Contintental Drift and The Peanuts Movie, Steve Martino teams up with Jim Carrey and Steve Carell for a Dr. Seuss adaptation of Horton Hears a Who!. Dr. Seuss' novels are a classic enjoyment, with probably the most creative ways to make unique rhymes and an unmatched world of imagination. Therefore, the attempt of adapting any of his works is quite a challenge. Though unfortunately the rhymes weren't completely transferred, this adaptation had quite a few factors towards an enjoying movie. 

​

  Horton (Jim Carrey) stumbles upon a tiny little speck, in which no one but him believes there is a society of living things atop. Trying to convince others that there is life in this speck, he finally manages to enter in contact with the majyor (Steve Carell), the mayor of Whoville. From there on it's a constant fight from both sides to convince their people, the mayor claiming they live in a speck and Horton that there is life in this same speck.

​

  As the movie starts, it becomes apparent that the more the narrator comes around, the closer you feel to Dr.Seuss himself. The expressions on Horton and his genuine innocence is a nice contrast with the mayor's playful character, making them have an interesting connection both personality and interactions wise. The sequence of events, especially at the beginning are compact and the animation is pretty well-crafted, something you'd imagine right out of the book.

​

  This adaptation is not the best though, while watching the initial enjoyment of the rhyming sequences, it's a sad reality to see that they are not kept up and the flow is broken. The final act's cruelty is too much to believe that a whole community in the jungle would care if someone believed there was life in a speck, specifically to point of destroying it to prove him wrong. Also, because the story is so focused on the mayor and Horton, Horton's friends and mayor's kids are left aside, only brought into scene as a saving through.

​

  All in all Horton Hears a Who! is enjoyable by itself, doesn't live up to become a great adaptation with its forgettable plot, but an overall fun watch with 7.0 out of 10 stones.