Dr. Seuss' The Lorax Review - It's Funny, It's Lyrical and the Animation's First-Rate; But the Lack of Originality Means it May Start to Grate

If you're reading this in America, this review will seem very belated, given that The Lorax is released on DVD and Blu-Ray over there on the 7th, but the third feature film from Illumination Entertainment - who arrived on the animation scene with Despicable Me back in 2010 - only arrived here in the UK on the 27th July; over 4 months after it was first released in America! So, I went to see the adaptation of the classic Dr. Seuss book on Wednesday, and left with a mixed impression.

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax is by no means a bad film; it's a very faithful adaptation of the Seuss book, with a strong moral message, cute characters and gorgeous animation. However, the characters that aren't cute are underdeveloped and annoying, the pacing is a bit off and the comedy is a trifle inconsistent. The biggest problem with The Lorax though, is that it's unoriginal. You will enjoy it, but you'll also leave with the inescapable feeling that it could've been so much more.

Interview: Tyler Carter, Visual Development Artist at Blue Sky Studios

Tyler at the Student Emmys, collecting an award for his short film DreamGiver, with the team who helped create it. Watch a video of Tyler and the team talking about DreamGiver here.

Today, I am happy to share with you the latest in a series of A113Animation interviews, an interview with Tyler Carter from Blue Sky Studios! Tyler is a visual development artist at Blue Sky Studios, the studio that brought you Ice Age and Rio, meaning he produces gorgeous artwork like what you see in the 'Art of' books that accompany animated releases (my review of The Art of Madagascar 3 here), and is currently working on their recently renamed 2013 release, Epic.

Over the past few weeks, I've had the chance to interview La Luna director Enrico Casarosa and Pixar co-founder Alvy Ray Smith, and I want to thank Tyler for helping to diversify our interviews somewhat - this isn't just a Pixar blog after all. It's also been great to get the chance to speak to someone from Blue Sky Studios, I've had very little chance to talk to anyone from animation studios other than Pixar up until now, and I'm very grateful to Tyler for agreeing to do this and speaking to me.

You can check out Tyler's artwork (some of which is featured here) on his website, and read our interview after the jump break:

Illumination Entertainment Developing The Cat in the Hat Adaptation

Almost a decade after the critical and box office failure of the live-action adaptation of arguably Dr. Seuss's most famous work, The Cat in the Hat, Universal Pictures are set to have another go at adapting the beloved book, this time as an animated film, Deadline reports.

Universal's resident animation department, Illumination Entertainment, are tasked with adapting the book for a CG animated release, following the enormous success of their adaptation of another of Dr. Seuss's books, The Lorax. The Lorax has topped the US box office for the past two weeks, and that success seems sufficient enough to somewhat expunge the painful memory of the 2003 live-action disaster from the mind of Audrey Geisel, as the widow of Dr. Seuss has agreed to the production of the film. Geisel will also be executive producing the product, with Chris Meledandri set to produce and Rob Lieber penning the script.

Meledandri has been working with the famed author's widow on adapting his works since he ran Blue Sky Studios, with 2008's Horton Hears a Who. Illumination Enertainment are also reportedly working on a live-action biopic about Seuss's life, starring and being produced by Johnny Depp.

Via Big Screen Animation.

The Lorax Trailer

Courtesy of Cartoon Brew, today we get the first theatrical trailer for Illumination Entertainment's animation adaptation of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax.

The film looks brilliant; wonderfully innocent, fantastically animated and with a very funny, well polished story; The Lorax looks set to be a great return to form for Illumination Entertainment, the studio behind Despicable Me, after the rather disappointing Live Action/CGI mash-up, Hop. It also looks like it will do very nicely as, at least spiritually, a follow up to Blue Sky Studios' Horton Hears a Who film a few years ago.

While this may not be the perfect image of Dr. Seuss's book, it looks like a whole lot of fun and a good film besides; Dr. Seuss was a genius, and this film looks like it's going to capture that.

The Lorax Poster

A week or so ago, Illumination Entertainment, the studio behind Despicable Me - and more recently, Hop - revealed the teaser poster for their upcoming film adaptation of Dr Seuss' The Lorax.

The film follows Chris Meledandri, CEO of Illumination Entertainment, over from Blue Sky Studios, after Meledandri oversaw production of the previous Dr. Seuss film, Horton Hears a Who over at Blue Sky and hits theatres March 2, 2012, directed by Despicable Me director, Chris Renaud and featuring the voices of Danny DeVito, Zac Efron and Ed Helms.

Poster courtesy of The Reel Bits and Yahoo! Movies.

Rio Released

Blue Sky Studios' sixth animated feature film, Rio, is released today over here in the UK. As regular blog readers will know, Rio is one of the animated films that I am most looking forward to this year and I am still very hyped for it. Rio currently holds an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (100% from Top Critics) and the positive reviews are making me want to see it even more.

Unfortunately audiences in the US will have to wait until the 15th to see the film. Personally, I will be going to see the film this weekend so keep an eye out for the review.