Review: Horton Hears a Who

In the five years of parenting that I have thus far participated in, movie nights have increasingly become a source of dread for me. ABout 94% of Kid's CGI movies that aren't produced by Pixar have pretty much sucked so hard they could turn inside out. Most of them are so spastic and unfollowable, even I, a person afflicted with ADD, cannot follow anything going on- it's like sitting inside a wind tunnel with characters and half-assed jokes whizzing by at breakneck speed, occasionally smacking me in the face but never lingering longer than a few seconds. Case in point- last year's "Meet the Robinsons", a neurologically numbing vomitous mass that blew its entire load in its preview and had nothing left for the 110 minute feature presentation. There was literally one funny part, which had been in every commercial, and 109.5 minutes of overly color-blasted schlock. I think that movie is an excellent representation of what it must be like to be a chihuahua, high on acid , lost in a chuck-e-cheese arcade.

So, went to see Horton Hears a Who with the Fam tonight, prepared for the worst. The story is one of the few films based off of a book that I have actually read. For the first two thirds of the movie, I was mostly entertained by the occasional cute laughs and genuinely odd characters- the little yellow furball was especially funny. I was burning a lot of brain cells trying to figure out the symbology (great word) represented in what I assumed had to be some sort of metaphor for Religion, Faith, Spirituality... something... when you have a story about someone who is doing things based off of a belief in something he cannot see... well anyway that part of it never really closes its own loop. The last third of the movie really is pretty cute, appropriately intense (Nicholas was enraptured) and has some really funny and original moments- right up to the big group Journey song, which was both funny and wierd (but more funny).

The Final Word: 7.5*

All in all I give it a 7.5 out of 10. Worth seeing with the kiddos. It doesn't draw the adults in as well as a pixar movie does- (certainly tries to, by letting Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell do their thing)- but still is cute and reminds us again that "a person's a person, no matter how small"

*Method for determining specific rating as follows: I estimate you will enjoy this film 75% as much as you would enjoy spending an equal amount of time hanging out with me while I'm sitting around being awesome which is one of my favorite activities. Other favorites include wailing on my (fake) guitar, pwning noobs, riding past people on my bike, or sleeping with** my smokin hot uber-babe of a wife.


(** Sleeping with could be defined more specifically as sleeping adjacent to but not touching, lest I be thwacked)