Horton Hears a Who! (film)

Plot

A rolling bur causes a speck of dust to pop out of a flower. It floats through a hole to the Jungle of Nool. While swimming, the jungle's eccentric nature teacher, Horton the Elephant hears a tiny yelp coming from the speck and gives chase to it before placing it on top of a clover.

Horton discovers that deep inside the speck is the city of Whoville and its inhabitants, the Whos who are led by Mayor Ned McDodd whose family includes his wife, Sally, ninety-six daughters whose names all begin with H and one teenage son named JoJo. Despite being his father’s successor, JoJo does not want to be the next mayor and does not speak out of fear of disappointing his father.

When Horton begins to carry the speck with him, the city starts experiencing earthquakes and changes in the weather. The mayor’s attempts to caution Whoville are challenged by the condescending chairman of the town council, Vonford.

After he makes contact with Horton, the mayor finds out from Dr. Mary Lou LaRue that Whoville will be destroyed if Horton does not find a safe location for the speck to reside. With the help of his best friend Morton the mouse, Horton decides to place the speck atop Mt. Nool, the safest place in the jungle. The head of the jungle, the Sour Kangaroo, who despises Horton for his lackadaisical influence on the children and subsequently "pouch-schooling" her son Rudy, demands numerous times that Horton give up the speck for overshadowing her authority, but Horton refuses. Also taking force toward Horton are the Wickersham Brothers, a group of monkeys and the Kangaroo's henchmen who like to cause havoc around the jungle. Eventually, the Kangaroo, refusing to believe that the Whos exist, enlists a sinister but idiotic vulture named Vlad Vladikoff to get rid of the speck by force.

After a few failed attempts, Vlad manages to steal the flower away from Horton and drops it into a massive field of identical pink flowers causing an apocalyptic tremor in Whoville. After unsuccessfully picking flowers all day, Horton eventually recovers the flower (exactly the 3,000,000th flower), also revealing himself to the rest of Whoville, who have largely survived. The Kangaroo eventually finds out that Horton still has the speck, fires Vlad, and rallies the Wickersham Brothers and the other animals of Nool into capturing Horton, preying on their fears that their own children will become chaotic delinquents under his influence.

Upon an angry mob, stampeding to Horton and cornering him, the Kangaroo offers Horton a final chance to renounce Whoville's existence. Horton refuses, and despite the heartfelt speech that he gives, the Kangaroo orders the animals to rope and cage him, and to have the speck and Whoville destroyed in a pot of boiling beezlenut oil. The Mayor enlists all of his people to make noise, so that all the animals will find out they're really there, assisted by JoJo's "Symphonophone", an invention which creates a huge musical contribution and reveals that JoJo's true passion is music, but still fails to penetrate the surface of the speck.

The Kangaroo snatches the flower from the captured Horton and prepares to drop it into the pot. Meanwhile, JoJo grabs the horn used to project Horton's voice, runs up the highest tower, and screams his first word "Yopp!", breaking through the sound barrier just seconds before the speck hits the oil, and causing Rudy to grab the flower just in time before it reaches to the oil. Upon the animals hearing the Whos, they release Horton and shun the Kangaroo for tricking them while Rudy ignores her demands to return to her pouch and gives the speck back to Horton.

Despite this, Horton forgives the ostracized Kangaroo with a cookie from Vlad the bunny, who in turn provides a makeshift umbrella for Whoville as Horton and the animals of Nool carries them to Mt. Nool while saying farewell to each other by singing "Can't Fight This Feeling", and it is revealed that the Jungle of Nool (and Earth as a whole) is just one speck, like Whoville, among numerous others floating in space.

Voice cast

• Jim Carrey as Horton the Elephant, an eccentric, outgoing and good-hearted elephant and teacher in the Jungle of Nool who possesses acute hearing abilities. Unlike regular elephants, he lacks tusks.
• Steve Carell as Mayor Ned McDodd, the high-strung yet good-hearted mayor of Whoville who has 96 daughters, one son named JoJo, and a wife named Sally.
• Carol Burnett as the Sour Kangaroo, an egomaniacal kangaroo who mistrusts and sees Horton's inquisitive nature as a threat to her legal authority over Nool.
• Will Arnett as Vlad Vladikoff, a scary, savage, ravenous, and murderous yet goofy, eccentric, and idiotic vulture with a slight Russian accent hired by the Sour Kangaroo to steal Horton's clover.
• Seth Rogen as Morton, a mouse and Horton's best friend in the Jungle of Nool who at first doesn't believe his story, but still helps him.
• Jesse McCartney as JoJo McDodd, Ned and Sally's quiet (until the end) oldest son and the older brother of his 96 sisters who doesn't want to be the next mayor of Whoville.
  • Fletcher Sheridan provides JoJo's singing voice in the film's final song.
• Amy Poehler as Sally O'Malley-McDodd, Ned's wife and the mother of JoJo and his 96 sisters.
• Isla Fisher as Dr. Mary Lou LaRue, a professor, scientist and inventor at Who U.
• Niecy Nash as Miss Yelp, Ned's secretary.
• Jaime Pressly as Mrs. Quilligan, Jessica's blue-headed mother.
• Dan Fogler as Vonford, the chairman of the Whoville government and the lead Whoville councilman, who is dedicated to traditions and mistrustful of Ned.
  • Fogler also voices Yummo Wickersham, the largest and oldest of the Wickersham apes, who acts as their leader, and the older brother of Nits and Nuts Wickersham and problaby father 3 monkey-baby.
• Josh Flitter as Rudy Kangaroo, the Sour Kangaroo's doubtful young son who is much kinder than his mother.
• Laura Ortiz as Jessica Quilligan, a Red-Headed Palooski, Mrs. Quilligan's daughter, and one of Horton's students.
• Colleen O'Shaughnessey as Angela Glummox, a female glummox deer and one of Horton's students.
• Jonah Hill as Tommy Cow-Bear, a fat bear cub and one of Horton's students.
• Joey King as Katie, a cute and eccentric yet odd yak calf and one of Horton's students.
• Bill Farmer as Willie Cow-Bear, a bear-like creature and Tommy's father.
• Laraine Newman as Mrs Glummox, Angela's mother.
• Marshall Efron and Tim Nordquist as Nits and Nuts Wickersham and other Wickershams, Yummo's younger brothers, henchmen and guards.
• Heather Goldenhersh as Who Girl
• Selena Gomez as Helga McDodd, one of Ned and Sally's 96 daughters.
• Charles Osgood as the Narrator

Production

After the critical and commercial failure of the 2003 film The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss' widow, Audrey Geisel, was so dissatisfied with the film that she then decided not to allow any more live-action feature films based on his work. In March 2005, as Blue Sky Studios was completing Robots, the studio and 20th Century Fox Animation president Chris Meledandri approached Geisel about getting the adaptation rights for Horton Hears a Who!. The art director for Robots, Steve Martino, along with story consultant and additional scene director Jimmy Hayward, to be directed by Hayward and Martino with a set release date of early 2008.

Geisel was credited as an executive producer and watched production up close, For references in doing the character animation, along with footage of the voice actors performing their lines, the Blue Sky animators recorded themselves performing the script in an "acting room" to see what of their body language could translate well into the film.

To make Horton different from the mammoths Blue Sky created for the Ice Age series, he would at times stand and walk upright and bipedally on two legs in a way that made him look like "a fat man in an elephant suit". The directors noticed Horton's design in the book varied according to his emotion, and the 3D wireframe tried to allow for the same effects, with a bigger mouth to allow for wider facial expressions like those of Jim Carrey.

Soundtrack

(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) The original score for the film's soundtrack album was composed by John Powell, conducted by Pete Anthony and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. A soundtrack consisting of the film's score was released on March 25, 2008, by Varèse Sarabande. Near the end of the picture, the cast comes together and sings the song "Can't Fight This Feeling" by REO Speedwagon.

Other songs featured in the film include:

Reception

Critical reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, of reviews were positive, with an average rating of . The site's consensus reads, "Horton Hears A Who! is both whimsical and heartwarming, and is the rare Dr. Seuss adaptation that stays true to the spirit of the source material." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100 based on 31 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film version an "A−" grade on an "A+" to "F" scale.

Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter called it "a delight, brimming with colorful, elastic characters and bountiful wit."

John Anderson of Variety wrote: "The real stars of the movie are the animators, who imbue even the overgrowth in Horton's jungle with a certain floppy Seuss-ishness."

Box office

Horton Hears a Who! grossed a total of $298.5 million on an $85 million budget. $154.5 million came from the United States and Canada, and $145 million from other territories.

In its opening weekend, the film grossed $45 million in 3,954 theaters, averaging $11,384 per theater in the United States and Canada, and ranking #1 at the box office. The film also had the strongest opening for a film starring Jim Carrey since Bruce Almighty, with the same applying to his costar in both films, Steve Carell.

The film previously had the fourth-largest opening weekend in March, behind Ice Age, Ice Age: The Meltdown and 300, and as of September 2012, it ranks 15th place. In the United States and Canada, Horton Hears a Who! was also the #1 film its second weekend of release, grossing $25 million over the Easter frame, in 3,961 theaters and averaging $6,208 per venue. It dropped to #2 in its third weekend grossing $17.8 million in 3,826 theaters and averaging $4,637 per venue. At the international box office it remained at #1 in its third week.

Interpretations

Horton Hears a Who!, like other Dr. Seuss creations, contains layered subtexts and messages. A major theme regards learning about universal values between vastly different places and people, as shown by the quote "A person's a person, no matter how small". This is employed on many levels: primarily with Horton and the Mayor of Whoville making contact and championing each other to the point where everyone around them eventually learns the truth about the speck that Whoville resides on; but also with the Mayor and Sour Kangaroo's relationships with their respective sons, Horton and the Mayor being challenged by Sour Kangaroo and the chairman, the fickle herd mentality of the jungle community (save Horton's students and Morton) and Horton still forgiving Sour Kangaroo, and the ending shot of all of the worlds being specks in space.

Awards

Home media

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 9, 2008. Three versions of the DVD are available: a single-disc edition, a 2-disc special edition, and a gift set packaged with a Horton plush. All three versions included the Ice Age short film Surviving Sid.

In the United States, the film earned $77,630,768 from DVD sales and $180,434 from Blu-ray sales for a total of $77,811,202 in video sales.

Notes

References

References

1. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!". [[AFI Catalog of Feature Films]].
2. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008)".
3. "Horton Hears a Who!". [[Turner Broadcasting System]] ([[WarnerMedia]].
4. "Horton Hears a Who (1970/1987/1992/2008) side-by-side comparison".
5. "Horton Hears a Who!".
6. (March 16, 2008). "Now they can laugh". [[Los Angeles Times]].
7. (March 14, 2008). "'Horton' Here Isn't a Hoot". Los Angeles Times.
8. "Glummox Mom (visual voices guide)".
9. "Laraine Newman (visual voices guide)".
10. (February 26, 2004). "Seussentenial: 100 years of Dr. Seuss".
11. Carnevale, Rob. (2008). "Dr Seuss' Horton Hears A Who - Chris Wedge and Mike Thumeier interview". IndieLondon.
12. (March 10, 2005). "Fox Animation, Blue Sky to Make CGI Horton Film". [[Animation World Network]].
13. Fleming, Michael. (March 9, 2005). "Fox woos Seuss with new 'Who'". Variety.
14. Fleming, Michael. (December 7, 2005). "Helmers hear a 'Who'". Variety.
15. Orange, B. Alan. (March 12, 2008). "EXCLUSIVE: Horton Director Jimmy Hayward Hears a Who!". MovieWeb.
16. "Bringing the Characters to Life", ''Horton Hears a Who!'' DVD
17. "The Elephant in the Room: Jim Carrey", ''Horton Hears a Who!'' DVD
18. "Dr. Seuss: Horton Hears a Who! 8Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)". AllMusic.
19. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who!". Varese Sarabande.
20. (March 13, 2008). "Horton Hears a Who! Review". IGN.
21. "Horton Hears a Who! - Production Notes". Mymovies.
22. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008)". [[Fandango Media.
23. "Horton Hears a Who!". [[Metacritic]].
24. (9 March 2008). "Horton Hears a Who!".
25. (9 March 2008). "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!".
26. "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! (2008) - Weekend Box Office Results". [[Box Office Mojo]].
27. (March 18, 2008). "''Horton'' hears a win".
28. "Top March Opening Weekends at the Box Office". [[Box Office Mojo]].
29. Conor Bresnan. (April 19, 2008). "Around the World Roundup: 'Horton' Tops Another Soft Weekend".
30. "A Person is a Person: A Universal Message", ''Horton Hears a Who!'' DVD
31. (December 1, 2008). "'Kung Fu Panda' leads Annie noms". Variety.
32. (May 12, 2009). "ASCAP Honors Top Film and Television Musiccomposers and Songwriters at 24th Annual Awards Celebration". ASCAP.
33. "2009 Golden Reel Award Nominees: Feature Films". Motion Picture Sound Editors.
34. "9th Annual Golden Trailer Award Nominees". The Golden Trailer Awards.
35. "2008 Official Awards Ballot with winners in bold". Houston Film Critics Society.
36. (February 6, 2009). "Nickelodeon Unfolds Luminous List of 2009 Kids' Choice Awards Nominees".
37. (January 16, 2009). "International Film Music Critics Announce 2008 Nominees". ComingSoon.net.
38. (January 3, 2012). "2008 Awards (12th Annual)". Online Film Critics Society.
39. (November 30, 2008). "Satellites soar for Meryl Streep". Variety.
40. (March 11, 2009). "Saturn Nominations Unveiled". [[IGN]].
41. "2009 Nominations & Recipients". Young Artist Awards.
42. McCutcheon, David. (July 28, 2008). "Horton Hears A Blu". [[IGN]].
43. "Horton Hears a Who". The Numbers.