“The Lorax” a decent movie, but too preachy

“A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean,” penned Dr. Seuss. Throughout his book “The Lorax,” Seuss gently nudged at the topic of being more environmentally cautious. While the most recent film version has that same underlying message, it approaches it in a bigger, though not necessarily better way.

12-year-old Ted (Zac Efron) lives with his family inside the picture perfect town of Thneedsville, run
by the sinister Mr. O’Hare (Rob Riggle). The town is perfect, with one exception: Thneedsville has no living trees. Plastic blowup trees line the artificial lawns of Thneedsville’s citizens and O’Hare rakes in a large profit selling bottled oxygen to the townspeople. Everyone gets along merrily until Audrey (Taylor Swift), Ted’s neighbor/crush, reveals to Ted how badly she wants to have a tree for herself. Ted brings this problem to his grandmother (Betty White), who tells him to find the “Once-ler” who lives outside of town.

The Once-ler turns out to be a grumpy
hermit who
lives in the
wastelands
outside of
town. He
tells Ted the
story of the Lorax (Danny DeVito), a magnificently mustached orange creature
(like DeVito) and guardian of the forest. Once-ler’s visions of greed led to all the trees in the area being destroyed to make his Thneed products; in the process he lost the respect of the Lorax and drove away to animals that lived in the
area. Armed with a gift from Once-ler, it is up to Ted now to bring back Thneedsville and the forests to what it used to be.

“The Lorax” preaches about how companies are greedy, terrible things and how we must save the world and kumbayah. Funnily enough, its marketing team decided to invest in dish- washer detergent and other corporate products for advertising. I’m smart enough to realize that corporations are not people, but come on.

Double standard, much?
It’s not a terrible movie by any means,but I think that the writers should have let up on the perils of deforestation and of corpora- tions, focusing instead on what is and should be; a Dr. Seuss book with a short, but sweet message for readers of all ages.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”