Horton Hears a Who.
Horton Hears a Who! is a 2008 animated film based on the Dr. Seuss novel of the same name.
Cast[]
- Jim Carrey - Horton
- Steve Carell - Mayor Ned McDodd
- Amy Poehler - Sally O'Malley
- Carol Burnett - Sour Kangaroo
- Dan Fogler - The Chairman/Yummo Wickersham
- Seth Rogen - Morton
- Will Arnett - Vlad Vladikoff
- Jesse McCartney - JoJo McDodd
Plot[]
A dust speck is dislodged from its obscure place and sent adrift through the Jungle of Nool. At the same time, Horton the Elephant, the jungle's eccentric nature teacher, takes a dip in the pool. The dust speck floats past him in the air, and he hears a tiny yelp coming from it. Believing that an entire society of microscopic creatures are living on that speck, he gives chase to it before placing it on top of a flower. Horton finds out the speck harbors the city of Whoville and its inhabitants, the Whos, led by Mayor Ned McDodd, whose family includes his wife Sally, 96 daughters whose names all begin with the letter H, and one teenage son named JoJo. Despite being the oldest child and next in line for the mayoral position, JoJo doesn't want to be the next mayor, and because he is so scared of disappointing his father, he never talks. Once Horton begins carrying the speck with him, the city starts experiencing strange phenomena (earthquakes and changes in the weather), and the Mayor finds his attempts to caution Whoville challenged by the Town Council, led by the opportunistic yet condescending Chairman.
After he makes contact with Horton, the Mayor finds out from Dr. Mary Lou LaRue that Whoville will be destroyed if Horton does not find a "safer, more stable home". With the help of his best friend Morton, Horton decides to place the speck atop Mt. Nool, the safest place in the jungle. The head of the jungle, the Sour Kangaroo, demands numerous times that Horton give up the speck for overshadowing her authority, but Horton refuses. Also taking force toward Horton are the Wickersham Brothers, a group of monkeys who like to cause anybody havoc and misery. Eventually, the Kangaroo enlists a sinister vulture named Vlad Vladikoff to get rid of the speck by force.
After a few failed attempts, Vlad manages to steal the flower away from Horton and drops it into a massive field of identical pink flowers causing an apocalyptic tremor in Whoville. After unsuccessfully picking 2,999,999 flowers Horton eventually recovers the flower (exactly the 3,000,000th flower). The Kangaroo eventually finds out, thanks to Mrs. Quilligan, that Horton still has the speck, and she rallies the jungle community into fighting Horton, saying that his goal will lead to anarchy. Upon cornering him, the Kangaroo offers Horton a final chance to renounce Whoville's existence. Horton refuses and, despite the heartfelt speech that he gives, the Kangaroo orders the animals to rope and cage him, and to have the speck and Whoville destroyed in a pot of beezlenut oil. The Mayor enlists all of his people to make noise by shouting "We are here!", as well as playing a variety of instruments, so that all the animals may hear them, assisted by JoJo's "Symphonophone", an invention which creates a huge musical contribution and reveals that JoJo's "true" passion is music, but still fails to penetrate the surface of the speck.
The Kangaroo snatches the flower from the weakened and captured Horton and drops it in the pot. Meanwhile, JoJo grabs the horn used to project Horton's voice, runs up the highest tower, and screams "YOPP!", breaking through the sound barrier just seconds before the speck hits the oil. Rudy, the Kangaroo's son, grabs the flower and proclaims he can hear it, and the other animals of Nool notice that they can hear it too. Despite his mother's objections, Rudy returns the flower to the released and recovered Horton. Realizing the truth about the Whos' existence, the animals isolate the Kangaroo for tricking them. While being praised for his integrity by his neighbors, Horton even forgives the devastated Kangaroo, and she befriends him with a makeshift umbrella for Whoville. The film ends with the people of Whoville and the animals of Nool gathering to recite the chorus from "Can't Fight This Feeling", with the narrator revealing that the Jungle of Nool (and Earth as a whole) is just one speck, like Whoville, among numerous others, floating in outer space.
Musical numbers[]
- "Can't Fight This Feeling" - Horton, Ned, Sally, Sour Kangaroo, Yummy, Morton, Vlad and JoJo