Jim Carrey voices the elephant in the Dr. Seuss adaptation "Horton Hears a Who."

How could any Dr. Seuss fan not be ecstatic about "Horton Hears a Who"?

It's a timeless classic with a great moral, and with a cast sporting star power like Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Carol Burnett and Seth Rogen, it's a surefire recipe for success, right?

So, where did it go wrong?

First, for those unfamiliar with the Dr. Seuss tale, an elephant named Horton (Carrey), aided by his large pachyderm ears, hears tiny cries on a speck of dust floating past him. On this speck sits an entire town, Whoville, led by its mayor 8(Carell).

The rest of the town thinks Horton a bit odd, since there's no way a person, much less an entire town, could live on a speck of dust, right? So they ostracize Horton, who captures the speck on the end of a clover and carries it around, talking to it.

The rest of the animals, led by a snooty, holier-than-thou kangaroo (Burnett), cannot suffer Horton his strangeness, and conspire to take his speck and his clover and destroy them.

In the book, Horton is wise and steadfast, determined to protect the town from the bullies who want to destroy it.

But Carrey's Horton is a dunce, a clown with a trunk. He's kind-hearted, but would likely fear the phrase "open-minded" because he'd think his brain would be showing.

And it's hard for Horton to be the lone voice of dissent when he's got buddies backing him up (including one of his main adversaries from the book, the baby kangaroo).

Why Rogen's sidekick character wasn't jettisoned (and Rogen cast as Horton) remains a mystery, and Carell and Carrey in the same film is unnecessary and their voices are almost indistinguishable.

Whoville, a wonderful town in the book, is transformed into a burg full of bozos. Half of Dr. Seuss's point was that a beautiful town was being destroyed, ostensibly for being different.

Directors Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino, conspiring with screenwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, in a frantic attempt to connect with their demographic, lose sight of identifying with their audience.

They pile in silly renditions of Carrey's "Dumb and Dumber" riffs, manipulate and stretch the narrative, alter key elements and bludgeon the material. They fail to grasp that for such an iconic story, you don't need poop jokes and, of all things, John F. Kennedy references.

The story itself IS the connection, and the other slick, fast-moving, unfunny high jinks are just nonsense and only fuels the short-attention-span reputation today's youth has.

Thankfully, the film finally gets it in the climax and for an instant captures the proper spirit, but lapses again by throwing in a pointless song number (REO Speedwagon's "I Can't Fight This Feeling").

Some of the original themes do carry through, and others are added. "Horton" toys with political correctness and the "think of the children!" power trips school boards and politicians use for telling everyone what's best for them.