Horton Hears a Hoo!

It’s pretty juvenile, but it also has a few fun moments.  Horton Hears a Hoo! (Jim Carrey, Steve Carell) is a movie for children, plain and simple.  In fact, nearly everything about the movie is plain and simple, even down to color-coding the bad guys (they’re all purple – monkeys, vultures, and kangaroos alike).  The simplicity of the movie might be endearing if it weren’t for the constant reminder that it is, in fact…simple.  To the point of simplistic.

The characters are very one dimensional (maybe two if I’m feeling generous), and the plot line is really just that: a plot line.  There are no real sub-plots.  Which of course means that there are not many overtly tangential, unrelated-to-the-plot kind of story lines.  The one story within the meta-narrative that is a true sub-plot is that of the relationship between the Mayor of Hooville and his only son (he has 96 daughters).  So, besides this, the whole shabang is the journey of Horton and his Hooville friends on the “speck,” which is on the “clover,” which is in his “hand” (a tribute to Dave Barry) to the mountain that will be their safe haven .

But the one-dimensionality to the whole script is not the only thing that makes it juvenile to the point of jejune.  The content of the dialogue is also very childish, with few, if any, jokes thrown in that anyone under the age of 15 just probably won’t get.  Which is why this is a movie for the kids when parents are having dinner.  Not to be see with the children.  Kind of like Space Chimps.  In addition to the dialogue, there is a short anime parody with Horton as the hero, of course, which comes out of nowhere and goes into nowhere, with no explanation or justification, except for a small tribute to the original illustrations from the Dr. Seuss book early on in the movie.  Just another facet of a puerile film which makes it not really worth seeing.

All that being said, this Hot Fuzz meets The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail meets religious commentary meets children’s animated film does have some redeeming qualities.  It says a good deal on the notion of belief, what it means to believe something, where it comes from, and also what it means to have faith in one’s belief despite the naysayers (which reminds me of another Carell film no one should see, Evan Almighty).  There are several religious elements in the movie that are worth noting, I think.  For starters, Horton is an elephant, and this elephant holds the speck in his giant hand, or one might say, on his shoulders, since it is his responsibility to take good care of the miniature world and find it a safe home in which to exist.  There are several levels of religiosity to this, not the least of which is the idea that humanity is a small “speck,” too, which the last shot in the movie indicates is well known to the directors, and it’s also a “just in case you missed the point” kind of image, too.  For the kids.  Hopefully.  But there is also the lesser known idea (in the Western world, anyway) of the Hindu elephant (or elephants) on whose back the world is upheld.  [See image here.]

The religious tones of the movie are one aspect that might make it enjoyable for adults, I think.  Any thinking person will see what is meant to be seen, as Dr. Seuss, I think, intended it to be: plain and simple – in a word, obvious.  It was obvious to Seuss that the world we live in is precious, and that we, by necessity, are precious in it.  He thought it obvious that we should take care to think of life as a sacred journey, with belief systems which we should hold to, so that we can find our way in this mess of a world.  We don’t understand it all, but we know that we must cherish what we do understand, and live in the moments we have.  So, despite the fact that this movie is juvenile and over(t)ly simplistic, it still has a message, a meaning in it all.  And for that, we can thank Dr. Seuss.  Not Hollywood.