Let me just say first that, I consider Bo Welch's The Cat in the Hat (2003) the worst movie I've seen in my more than ten years of reviewing movies, and Ron Howard's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) is not far behind, and would no doubt rank somewhere in the bottom fifty. Jim Carrey returns from the title role in The Grinch as the voice of the title role in Horton Hears a Who! so I was skeptical at best about the quality of the new film. Not to mention that most CGI animated films not produced by Pixar tend to range from forgettable to awful. What a happy surprise, then, to see one of those rare animated films -- and an even rarer family film -- which ventures into that elusive middle ground, providing wholesome entertainment for kids as well as a few belly laughs for adults.

Directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino, both making their feature debut, Horton begins by effortlessly rendering in 3D space that familiar 2D world of Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss), with its curvy trees and oval-shaped hills and dales. We meet our hero, Horton (voiced by Jim Carrey), a pachyderm whose personality teeters between dutiful and lazy, helpless and self-reliant, goofy and dedicated. He teaches a class of young animals about various forms of jungle life, but not without a bit of inadvertent, entertaining slapstick. One day, a speck of fluff floats past his sizable ears and he hears a voice emanating from it. He rescues the speck, deposits it on top of a clover and learns that, living upon the speck, is an entire miniature society called Whoville (not to be confused with the Whoville in The Grinch) and run, more or less, by the Mayor (voiced by Steve Carell).

So it's no secret that Steve Carell hasn't always made the best choices when it comes to movie roles. The same could probably be said of some of Jim Carrey's choices as well, so there could be a lot riding on both their reputations for the big-screen adaptation of the classic Dr. Seuss story, Horton Hears a Who!. Erik had brought us the first teaser back in July and now a full feature trailer has been released.

Horton is based on the 1954 children's story about a microscopic world that gains an elephant as their protector. Over the years the story's moral of "a person's a person no matter how small" has been interpreted as a response to the McCarthy anti-communist era and the importance of treating the "least of us" with a little care and respect -- pretty heavy for a kid's book, I know, but it does make me long for the days when children's entertainment had more going for it than tie-in deals. The film stars Carell as the feisty mayor of Whoville and Jim Carrey as their elephant advocate. The film has a solid supporting cast that includes some truly hilarious people; namely Will Arnett, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Amy Poehler, and Carol Burnett.

So even if you are not the biggest fan of kid's movies, after watching this trailer, you can't deny this is one snazzy looking movie with some big-name comedic talent. But I guess everyone said the same thing about Bee Movie, and we all know how that turned out. Horton Hears a Who! arrives in theaters on March 14th, 2008.

Our pals over at Moviefone have an exclusive first look at the first trailer for Horton Hears a Who, based off the book written by Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) back in 1954. Jim Carrey once again visits the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss as Horton; an imaginative elephant who's convinced there's a community of people crying out for help on a tiny piece of dust that's flying through the air. Little does he know, but that tiny speck is actually its own planet; home to a city called Who-Ville and a feisty major (voiced by Steve Carell) who's privy to the world outside Who-Ville, even if no one else is. When the residents of Who-Ville ask Horton for protection, he happily obliges -- however, the surrounding animals all think he's gone nuts. Can Horton help his animal pals hear the Who-Ville cries before it's too late, and they end up a part of "beezlenut stew?" Though it's only a teaser, I have to say this one definitely has potential -- as it should with a voice cast that includes Carrey, Carell, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Dane Cook, Will Arnett, Dan Fogler, Amy Poehler and Isla Fisher. It also goes to show that Dr. Seuss material belongs in the animation realm, and not in live action. As much as I love Mike Myers and Jim Carrey, their two Seuss-related films (The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas) were, um, not that good. Check out the trailer above; Horton Hears a Who hits theaters on March 14, 2008.