However, when thinking about it, animated films have the tricky job of appealing to this younger audience but also pleasing the older parent crowd who are unfortunate enough to have to take their little darlings to the cinema to entertain them. Take a look at films like Shrek that successfully mould together adult subtle humour with silly fart jokes for the children (apart from the sequels, which have far too many popular culture references that are now outdated) and you can see the winning formula.
The Lorax is a another Dr. Seuss adventure that has had a big screen adaption. The film follows 12-year-old Ted (voiced by Zac Efron) who wants to win the affection of the girl of his dreams, Audrey (Taylor Swift). She loves trees (of all things - they live in a town called Thneed-Ville where everything is man-made and unnatural), so Ted has to go on an adventure outside of town to see The Once-ler (Ed Helms) to learn about the secret behind where the trees are and all about The Lorax (Danny DeVito), who was once the guardian of nature. Thrown into the mix are Mr O'Hare (Rob Riggle), the dastardly businessman who has made money out of selling bottled air to the residents of Thneed-Ville who wants to stop Ted and Grammy Norma (Betty White) the hip granny - who provides most of the laughs for the young-uns who tries to help Ted.
Now, The Lorax gets one thing right about children's films - it's premise is very simple and straight-forward with a strong moral message behind it. What's the point of taking the little kiddies to the cinema and spending £20+ on admission and snacks if we can't teach them anything?! The Lorax really pushes the positive message of looking after nature and basically hugging our lovely trees. While it is arguably a bit of an old message that we have been told again and again, The Lorax tells it in a way that involves garishly bright colours, silly toilet humour and a few catchy songs thrown in for good measure (with the ultra-catchy "Let It Grow" at the end, which should have the young-uns singing and dancing on the way out.)
For the adults, there's not a lot... Sure, it's not completely childlike and the film is generally enjoyable, but the film doesn't try to 'go there' with subtle adult humour/innuendos (like Shrek did), so there's not a lot of laugh-out-loud moments for adults. Sure, the songs are catchy enough to grab the older audience's attention, but this is mainly one for the children.
However, the one major gripe that I had with The Lorax was that parts of it were quite boring. For a film that's supposed to appeal to a target audience of the fickle with short attention spans, the story of how The Lorax met The Once-ler and tried to warn him against chopping all the trees down was quite boring. When the film sets up the problem of Ted wanting to impress Audrey by finding her a tree, I was expecting a film full of chases with the evil O'Hare, a dangerous mission to a far part of the Earth to find the remaining seed and then the dangerous mission back to Thneed-Ville to give it to her.
But, no. We didn't get any of that. Instead, we are treated to Ted visiting the older Once-ler on three separate occasions (each time he wasn't pursued out of Thneed-Ville by O'Hare or his henchmen... why?!) to be told a story in flashback as to how the Once-ler met The Lorax, chopped all the trees down to make his business work and then realise that he has destroyed nature. Ted is then just given the last remaining tree seed and then there is a quick 10-minute (if that) chase with O'Hare in a race to plant the seed. It all just felt a little bit flat and boring for a children's film that looks so exciting and vibrant.
So, overall The Lorax isn't completely a bad time, but it just didn't seem as exciting or thrilling as it could have been. While the children will like the silly toilet humour and the ass-kicking touches of Grammy Norma, the real shining moments in the film are the musical numbers.
*** / *****
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