Lorax

May be a diversion for younger children, but it betrays the elegant simplicity of Geisel's vision.

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax doesn't speak for anyone, no one at all, and if it does have a tongue it's tied itself into so many knots trying to decipher its points, beyond the obvious ones, of course, is frustratingly impossible.

Directors Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda have filled every scene with funny-looking (or sounding) characters, sight gags, and one-liners to provide constant distraction.

It is a beautifully designed, well constructed movie. Unfortunately, the story at the core of the movie seems more like an artifact of 1970 and repeatedly weighs down what could otherwise have been a better film.

This might work as a diversion for younger kids, but there is no sign of the wit or wisdom of Dr. Seuss.

Director Chris Renaud and his team have fun with these dithery, frenetic characters. The film is less special when it slows down and takes a breath of fresh air.

The badness of the picture is a shock.

Par for the course in blowout CGI adaptations, a great deal of detail and bustle is gained at the expense of charm-for all the miracles these armies of animators can achieve, they have yet to successfully reproduce a humble artist's line.

It just never quite connects in the way fans of this legendary character hope it would.

Hypocrisy on an epic scale, this computer-animated feature turns the Dr. Seuss classic about corporate greed into a multimillion-dollar toy commercial.

While the movie is funnier than the book, the drawback of this modernized version is that it loses the timeless quality of the story on the page.

Where "The Lorax" succeeds, it's by letting its Seussian spirit shine through.

It could have been worse. How much worse it could be! / But is that enough? Not for my kids and me. / It's no Despicable Me, sad to say. / Perhaps someone should lift this Lorax away.

I am the critic, I speak to displease: "The Lorax" is awful, like chronic disease.

It looks like a bowl of fuzzy Froot Loops. But it goes down like an order of oatmeal.

The film's zippy and buoyant framework, however, make the lessons seem not like medicine.

The whole thing is harmless.

This movie version adds a whole lot of other stuff, most of it not very good and not in keeping with the spirit of the Seuss original.

The big screen's best treatment of Seuss since the wonderfully weird 1953 kid-flick The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

It remains faithful to the spirit of Seuss. The pro-conservation, anti-consumerist message of the book is heartily intact. And, like the Seuss story, the film never resorts to sermonizing.