I saw The Lorax this week, and I liked it. I was braced for environmentalist propaganda, but it was just a Dr. Seuss book made into a movie. It has an added villain who sells canned air and an added storyline in which the little boy has an innocent crush on a teenage girl in the neighborhood, but you have to add a few things to stretch a children's book into a movie. It is about saving trees and the environment, but Dr. Seuss wrote a book that says, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." I was handed a bookmark thingy when I bought my ticket with that quote on it to drive the point home, and you can speculate at the timing given the current political discussions, but as a movie, it works. It is beautiful to watch. The animation is comfortably imaginative. (It is not like so many animated movies that look almost real. As you watch you say, "Hey, that looks real--no not really," and your mind gets tired of trying to figure it out.) Orange becomes the most appealing and exciting color you've ever seen. So, whatever the motives of making The Lorax just now, your motivation can be to watch a fun movie.
If you want to compare the book to the movie, here is a link to a youtube reading of The Lorax that I find exceptional. You get to hear the original story with all its Seussisms that are always so entertaining.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soRbNlPbHEo&noredirect=1
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