'Horton' is no 'Grinch,' but it's still unnecessary

OK, so it's not as bad as Ron Howard's elephantine live-action version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

The new animated "Horton Hears a Who" merely reconfirms what true Dr. Seuss fans already knew: the perfectly wrought, deliciously whimsical books of Theodor Geisel were never meant to be blown up into big movies, a process that buries their modest pleasures beneath heaps of hype.

The new "Horton" from directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino isn't depressing, like the joyless "Grinch" was. It's got a few moments of genuine humor and a really nice visual style that takes the classic Seuss characters and designs and deftly transforms them for the three-dimensional world of compute animation.

Nevertheless, it feels empty and overinflated, with the book's simple charms lost in the filler dreamt up by screenwriters Ken Dario and Cinco Paul.

Horton the Elephant is a big gray balloon of a character voiced by Jim Carrey with more gentleness and less maniacal intensity than he usually projects. Early in the film Horton hears a voice emanating from a tiny speck of dust nestled in the petals of a dandelion and spends the rest of the movie trying to convince his jungle neighbors that tiny Who-ville really exists and that he's not crazy.

His nemesis is the officious Kangaroo (voiced by Carol Burnett), a stickler for rules (she proudly announces that her baby is "pouch schooled") who employs a pack of aggressive blue monkeys and a vile-tempered buzzard (Will Arnett, with Russian accent) to enforce her vaguely fascist agenda.

Mostly she's outraged that Horton claims to have heard something that nobody else can hear. She'd like to imprison Horton and destroy the dandelion and the speck that's on it.

Meanwhile in Who-ville, the tiny city on that tiny speck, the Mayor (Steve Carell) is at first loathe to accept that his planet's fate is in the hands of a good-hearted but unseen elephant. Gradually he comes around and, though a born bumbler, convinces the citizenry that their salvation depends upon them making so much noise that they can be heard by everyone in Horton's world.

Narrated (not often enough) by Charles Osgood, "Horton" has a positive if somewhat muddled message about responsibility, faith and our reliance on our fellow creatures. Those with a good ear will recognize the voices of Seth Rogen, Isla Fisher, Jonah Hill, Amy Poehler and Jaime Pressly among the supporting characters.

But I wanted to be charmed ... and wasn't. "Horton Hears a Who" isn't offensive -- it just seems busy to no particular end.