The Lorax opens in Thneedville, a strange town where everything is made of plastic, even the trees and the citizens buy bottled air from Mr. O'Hare (voiced by Rob Riggle). Young Ted (voiced by Zac Efron) lives in this town and he has a serious crush on his neighbor, Audrey (voiced by Taylor Swift). She tells Ted that she longs to see a living tree and that she would marry any man who brought her one. Ted decides that he must complete this task and his Grandmother (voiced by Betty White) tells him to seek a man who lives outside of town for advice. Ted escapes the confines of Thneedville and finds The Once-ler (voiced by Ed Helms), a hermit who tells Ted the tale of how the countryside was once covered with trees and how he had destroyed them in his quest to make Thneeds, despite the intervention of a creature called The Lorax (voiced by Danny DeVito) who speaks for the trees. Hearing this sad story, Ted wonders if the trees can ever come back.

The Lorax comes from Director Chris Renaud (who here co-directs with Kyle Balda) and Producer Christopher Meledandri who also brought us 2010's Despicable Me. That film took on the recent spate of CG-animated films by finding its own groove in weird humor and characters which were lovable despite the fact that they should have been unlikable. It also made the gutsy move of inhabiting the film with "Minions" -- yellow creatures who don't speak English, but wound up stealing the show. Despicable Me was an original work, so I was interested to see what these two (and their crew) could do with something based on Dr. Seuss.

The end result with The Lorax is a movie which attempts to duplicate the elements which Despicable Me work, but fails. As with many of these films, the makers of The Lorax ran into the problem of having to make a feature length film out of a relatively short story, so they added more to it. But, they didn't add enough. The middle part of the film, in which the Once-ler tells Ted the story of what happened to the trees and his run-in with The Lorax, is taken from the original Dr. Seuss book. The story involving Ted's quest and the folks in Thneedville is a new creation. But, the two parts don't gel very well and they feel like two different movies. Little is done to incorporate the Once-ler's flashbacks into Ted's world save for the trees and the bit about how Thneedville became what it is today. Typically when a movie has this sort of issue, one story dominates the other, but that isn't the case here -- both are equally lame. There's simply not enough meat in Ted's story and the Once-ler's story is difficult to endorse as it focuses on what is essentially the villain of the story.

And then we have The Lorax, who, as it turns out, is actually a second-tier character here. Given that his name is on the marquee, he doesn't get much screen time here. (While watching the movie, I kept paraphrasing Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park -- "Is there going to be any Lorax in your Lorax movie.") And when he in on-screen, The Lorax has very little impact. He may be the least effective title character in movie history. He doesn't get much help from the goofy bears who inhabit this world -- they are clearly supposed to be this movie's version of the "Minions", but they simply lack in personality.

The most surprising thing about The Lorax is the lack of humor here. Yes, it takes on the serious topic of ecology and some of the movie is somber, but Despicable Me has some laugh-out-loud moments and I was hoping for the same from this movie. There are a few good lines (most of which were in the trailer) and the singing fish deliver some smiles, but for the most part I sat stone-faced waiting for the movie to kick into gear and elicit some sort of reaction.

Overall, The Lorax is a major disappointment. A beloved book with a timely message has been turned into an overly-long by-the-numbers movie which has no heart. The animation is good, but the voice actors, save for DeVito, add little to the movie. The disjointed story and the scarcity of laughs really hurt the film. Forget about saving the trees, someone needs to save this movie.

The Lorax felt like a Disney movie, as Ted's father is nowhere to be found on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps. The image is incredibly sharp and clear, showing no grain and no defects from the source material. (I have to assume that this was a digital-to-digital transfer.) The colors look amazing, most notably the greens and oranges, and the image is never too dark or bright. Even in this 2D version, the image has an impressive amount of depth. (This must have looked great in 3D.) The picture has a lot of detail and there's no obvious defects in the animation. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 4.2 Mbps. This track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. This is a very active track which provides a constant stream of stereo and surround effects. The placement of these effects is very impressive, as the stereo effects alert us to sounds off-screen, while the surround effects really draw us into the action. The subwoofer effects are nicely done as well, as they can be wall-shaking, but never obnoxious.

The Lorax Blu-ray Disc contains several extras. We begin with an AUDIO COMMENTARY from Director Chris Renaud and Co-Director Kyle Balda. Viewers can choose "O'Hare TV" which offers an alternate cut of the film that runs 6-minutes longer as it includes commercials for O'Hare products. The Disc offers three "Mini-Movies" -- "Wagon Ho", "Forces of Nature", and "Serenade" -- which run about 8 minutes, plus "Making of Mini-Movies" (4 minutes), which offers comments from those involved in this project. The Disc offers one DELETED SCENE which runs about 90 seconds, and really just adds footage to an existing scene from the film. "Expedition of Truffula Valley" is an interactive feature which allows the viewer to learn more about the characters in the film. This includes character biographies, instructional videos on how to draw the characters, and interviews with the cast. "Seuss to Screen" (4 minutes) has comments about the appeals of Dr. Seuss and offers a look at how the famous drawings were brought to life. "Once-ler's Wagon", "Get Out of Town", and "Truffala Run" are all interactive set-top games. The final extra is "Sing Along" for the song "Let It Grow".