Dr Seuss, the legendary American writer and cartoonist, has not had the same impact on childrens' imaginations here he has enjoyed across the pond.

British anklebiters have always found more than enough to satisfy their curiosity with offerings from the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and JM Barrie.

Seuss' tales have always seemed a little too wilfully surreal, a little too contrived for European nippers who are more than happy to let their imaginations do the work for them.

This tells the story of Horton (an obligingly amiable elephant voiced by Jim Carrey) who catches a faint cry from a passing speck of dust.

It turns out that a whole universe millions and millions of times smaller than our own is inhabited by miniscule creatures known as Whos and are looked over by their genially ineffective mayor Ned (Steve Carell).

The kindly Horton takes it up himself to transport the tiny speck of dust where it won't come to harm...but there are those that don't agree that "a person's a person, no matter how small."

His chief adversary is the Sour Kangaroo (Burnett), a joyless busy-body who hires eagle hitman Vlad Vladikoff (Arnett) to grab Horton's precious cargo and destroy it.

You can't fault the vocalisation of Carrey and Carell (who last worked together on Bruce Almighty) and there's some sharp writing to lend proceedings a bit of bite.

The trouble is it tries way too hard and seems to have a pathological resistance to keeping things unvarnished and straightforward.

The Grinch, another Seuss creation and also starring Carrey, showed his writings could be adapted for the big screen and here CGI is just the job for the most fantastical sequences.

However, despite looking great it feels a little foreign, lacking the appealing emotional simplicity of the traditional European childrens' classics.

Tweens may see it differently.

Tim Evans