[uncledaddy]

I think all my issues with the film can be summed up by saying they tried to make it too teenagery, appealing to all the things that people in the eight to fourteen age range think is cool or cute or funny. You have the annoying portrayal of the fish and the bears, which are basically your Thing 1 and Thing 2 or the minions from Despicable Me, because people adored those. You have your teenage main characters and your typical boy-wants-girl romance plot, and even a crazy-but-surprisingly-wise butt-kicking granny, and the would-be-scary-but-too-small-and-doofy villain. All of which people really love, especially young people because they haven't seen enough of these things in their lifetime for them to seem over-done and corny to them yet. They're still novel and right on the same level of maturity as the audience. And when we consider who the target audience really is, well... Not saying it's a good thing, but they're basically just "doing what works".

I don't follow actors all that much; I may be familiar with Danny Devito, but all I hear when watching the movie without knowing beforehand who did what is Lorax. I think the voice and characterization of him was spot-on.

There are a lot of directions in which the whole Once-ler thing could have been taken, and while I'm tired of seeing all the same types of characters, myself, I do think the way they did it worked well enough with the story that it didn't really bother me. If you're going to go the route of giving him his own back-story, at least.

Aaaand I thought the music and animation were quite decent.

So overall I do like it enough that I'd watch it again at some point, even though I recognize its flaws from a mile away, and it's not going in my bin of top favorites any time soon. Thankfully, the most cringe-worthy parts IMO were not a big enough part of the main attraction to ruin it.