Truffula oil

I saw The Lorax on opening night with a friend who didn't want to see anything serious. Though I haven't read the Dr. Seuss book in a very long time, I remember the general storyline: a boy wants to know why trees have disappeared, and a mysterious Once-ler reveals that it was his own greed that killed them off many years ago.

In general, I was disappointed and bored with the movie. The addition of an air-in-a-can Big Business industry was something I don't think was in the original Dr. Seuss book, but it did fit rather well for turning the story into a longer animated film. It also gave the movie an evil corporate villain for the audience to rally around.

But the breaks into song and dance were a little annoying and out-of-place, though all the little kids in the audience seemed to love it. (They chair-danced during most of the songs. We were surrounded.) I also thought the little romance between the two kids was a little weird: the plot would have worked fine if Ted, the boy, simply had a curious intellectual interest in trees. Why was it necessary for him to want a tree to impress a girl? Luckily, the movie is short enough that I don't think my entire time was wasted watching it; plus, it gave me a quick break from the coup in Olympia that ate up my time until 3am.

Then I read this BBC analysis and this review of The Lorax and didn't feel so bad.