The original “The Lorax” Book, which was made by Dr Seuss (who also made “Green Eggs and Ham” as well as “A Cat with a Hat”), is amazing for its writing and its environmental message. Back in 2012, Illumination Studios decided to make an animated film adaptation of this book.

The movie adaptation has changed the story of the book a lot. Our main hero instead of being presented as the reader is instead a young boy who wants to impress a girl in his neighbourhood. He lives with his mother and grandmother, and the city he lives in is weirdly futuristic. One day, he travels away from the city, to find out a creepy place where there’s almost no life. He stumbles across a house and he sees an old man. The old man decides to tell him the story of himself as well as how wonderful this place once was and how he made a massive mistake. I won’t spoil the rest, but you can kind of get an idea of what happens.

This adaptation sadly doesn’t stand up to the original book. A lot of changes were made to the story and most of them were not good. The original protagonist was supposed to represent us the readers, and the old man was not even given a face to represent the corporations. The book ends with the reader trying to save the environment. While the film adaptation fails at almost everything. The protagonist is just a generic boy, the old man is just a businessman, and the boy does everything just to impress a girl. Also, unlike the original book, the film got a lot of sponsors from other corporations, which kinda defeats the purpose of the film.

Overall, I think that the movie had a lot of potential which was sadly wasted. I would recommend the book, but not this film.