'Horton' is violent and long, I confess; but beats out the other cinema mess

A Dr. Seuss story is a Dr. Seuss story, no matter how small.

And it inspires an engaging movie for the entire family, regardless of how much padding it takes to justify its 88-minute running time as a computer-animated feature.

Directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino, "Horton Hears a Who!" gives the doc's 1954 classic a full-blown star treatment with Jim Carrey, Steve Carell and Carol Burnett offering their voice talents, along with folksy news commentator Charles Osgood supplying the voice-over narration.

The story unfolds on the 15th of May in the jungle of Nool, where in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, Horton the elephant (Carrey) seems to act like a fool.

More Coverage Video Dann's rewview of 'Horton'

Horton's convinced that there's life on a single speck of dust alighted on a clover in front of him. The elephant's keen hearing picks up sounds of an entire town named Whoville on the speck.

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."

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.

Millions of Seuss fans already know the many lessons to be learned from Horton's experiences. Keep your word. Tell the truth. Never give up. Stand up for yourself. And add a "no matter what" to each of them.

"Horton Hears a Who!" adheres to the basic ideas of Seuss' original poem, although it supplies a family for the Mayor, who now has 96 daughters and one son named Jo-Jo, who contributes an estranged father-son subplot. (In the poem, Jo-Jo is Whoville's smallest Who and not related to the Mayor.)

"Horton" creates a host of other characters as well, including the elephant's pal Morton the Mouse (voiced by Seth Rogen). Most significantly, the screenplay (from Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio) includes a lesson in forgiveness at the end, requiring Horton to publicly forgive his tormentors for roping and caging him, and for trying to boil the Whoville speck in a vat of roiling Beezle-Nut oil.

This marks the second time Carrey has played the main character in a movie inspired by a Seussian tale. He played the title character in Ron Howard's popular, live-action comedy "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas," a spotty fantasy that fell far short of its aspirations to be "The Wizard of Oz" of its time.

In "Horton Hears a Who!" 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."

But there's a key difference. Williams had full license to create his Genie from scratch; Horton is an established character who hatches eggs, hears Whos and is "faithful one-hundred per-cent!"

Purists might take exception to Carrey's free-wheeling approach to Horton, as well as the movie's unfortunate reliance on Saturday-morning-level cartoon violence to fill out the running time.

Although this doesn't belong in the same ranks as "Ratatouille," "Horton Hears a Who!" still succeeds as an endearing Seussian comedy about an elephant who promises to stick, and sticks by the small folks through thin and through thick.

"Horton Hears a Who!"

Starring: Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Carol Burnett, Charles Osgood, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler

Directed by: Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino

Other: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated G. 88 minutes