Movie Monday: The Lorax

Last week was Dr. Seuss's Birthday. I wanted to make some cute Cat in the Hat treats, or make something creative, but the week got away from me. There was no way that I was going to let the weekend get away from me without seeing The Lorax with my kids though!

When I was a kid my grandmother would read The Lorax and other Dr. Seuss favorites (Horton Hears a Who, Yertle the Turtle, etc.) to me every time I spent the night. I loved the way her voice changed with each character and how I could feel the vibrations in her chest as I lay my head on it. They are some of the fondest memories I have of my grandmother, and I will cherish them always. My grandmother is now in a nursing home with Alzheimer's so I recently asked my aunts and uncles what happened to her Dr. Seuss books. Unfortunately, they were stored in the basement of her home in Vermont, and they were ruined by mold. :(

Anyway, I have been looking so forward to this movie! I've been seeing previews for what seems like forever! My kids were really excited when I told them we were going, and as is typical for us, we also brought along one of their friends, and ran into a few more while we were there. The theater was packed and we couldn't all sit in the same row, but we had a good time anyway.

The movie takes place both in the past and in the present (something my 10 year old didn't really like). It starts off in a town called Thneedsville, where everything is fake and there is no grass, trees, plants or dirt anywhere. Clean air is bought and circulated with machines.  A teenage boy (voiced by Zac Efron) goes on a quest, outside the city walls, to find a tree for the girl he likes (voiced by Taylor Swift). That is where he meets the Once-ler, who tells him the story of how greed and excessive consumption ruined the place that was once beautiful and full of life.

Overall I thought it was a great movie! It was more musical than I thought it would be, and a lot of the funny one-liners were shown in the previews, but it wasn't too sing-song-y, and we still laughed a lot. All of the kids (ages 3, 8, 9 and 10) were glued to the screen the entire time. They didn't even complain in the middle when I thought the story was dragging a bit. The ending was great though, and it gave everyone something to consider about our environment and how we are treating it.

On the way home we discussed the movie in the car. Everyone liked it, and said that it was funny. We talked about whether or not the same thing could really happen here, and they all agreed that it could. I think my 3 year old son said it best though. He said,

"If you cut down all the trees, you won't have any happy!"

And that, my friends, is the moral of the story! I highly recommend seeing this movie with your kids and using it as a platform for a discussion about the environment and how trees provide us with the air we breathe!

Two thumbs up for this movie - one for entertainment value and one for a positive message! What did you think? Did you like the way they added to the book to make it into a movie?