“Dr.
Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!,” Twentieth Century Fox’ animated family pic
should score big at the weekend box office as the first wave of schools let out
for Easter break.
“Horton,”
toplining the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell should have no problem
coming in No. 1, as Fox is planning to open the animated film in no less than
3,954 theaters this Friday. This almost equals the numbers of theaters the
other two rival films are opening in: “Never Back Down,” Summit
Entertainment’s mixed martial arts action-drama, which opens in 2,729 theaters
and “Doomsday,” Universal and Rogue Pictures’ sci-fi horror pic, which opens
in 1,936 theaters. It appears to be one of the weekends in which children and
teenagers are the ones who will fill in the theaters halls as all three new
entries are designed for them.
Coming
back to our movie, Fox is expecting it to ring up ticket sales of at least $40
million, possibly more than $50 million during its first three days in theaters
across the
“This
is one of the best animated pictures ever. I think it will be playing
throughout the spring period,” Fox distribution president Bruce Snyder said,
according to the Hollywood Reporter.
But, what’s the story of Horton? Well, it’s the story of a playful elephant that discovers an entire city, Whoville, living on a tiny speck on a flower, but can’t convince others of its existence. The Mayor of Whoville (Carell) strikes up a conversation with Horton, who promises to protect the Whos and their tiny town because "a person's a person no matter how small." This seems to be the moral of the whole movie.
Instantly, Horton becomes the very large butt of jokes in the jungle, especially from the snooty, sour Kangaroo (Burnett), who belittles the elephant's belief in something nobody can see.
Kangaroo, accompanied by the baby in her pouch, stirs the local residents against Horton. Those rascally monkeys, the Wickersham Brothers, and a naughty eagle named Vlad (Will Arnett) torment Horton and steal his Whoville clover to teach him a lesson.
Vlad drops the single clover in a giant clover field where he thinks Horton will never find it. Yet, Horton, being an elephant who never forgets a promise, searches for the tiny speck of dust housing the Whos.
Directed by former Pixar animator Jimmy Hayward and former “Robots” art director Steve Martino and scripted by partners Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, whose credits include “College Road Trip,” “Horton” gives Theodore Geisel’s 1954 literary classic a full-blown star treatment with Jim Carrey, Steve Carell along with folksy news commentator Charles Osgood supplying the voice-over narration.
Carrey expands the original, conservative pachyderm into a
zany creature performing impressions of celebrities and acting nutty. It's
almost as if Carrey is doing a Robin Williams riff of his Genie in “Aladdin.”
Asked about a time in his life when he felt like a speck, Jim Carey told MovieWeb: “I know I'm a speck. Absolutely. There's no question about it. That's how I feel. Honestly. I'm an interesting speck. That's how I've always thought about it, in those terms. How can you look at the sky at night and not feel that you're a speck somewhere? I saw a picture on the Discovery Channel one time of Earth from Mars. And you could hardly find it. It was a speck. We truly are a speck. There are all different levels of that. It's just kind of where you're at. It's really true.”
MPAA
rating: G (all ages admitted)
Running
time: 1:28
Opening:
Friday
Voiced by: Jim Carrey (Horton); Steve Carell (Mayor); Carol Burnett (Kangaroo); Will Arnett (Vlad); Isla Fisher (Dr. Mary Lou LaRue)
Directed by: Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino;
Written by: Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio,
Based on the book by Dr. Seuss
Edited by: Tim Nordquist;
Music by: John Powell;
Art direction by: Thomas Cardone;
Produced by: Bob Gordon and Bruce Anderson
A Twentieth Century Fox release.