Zac Efron and Rob Riggle are an odd couple, and in "The Lorax," they go head to head in a  battle for the environment of Thneedville.

I'm sure most teenage girls, faced with the choice between Efron and Riggle, would find themselves hard-pressed to make the call.  I mean, sure, Efron's so pretty he makes 20-year-old Rob Lowe look like the Elephant Man, but what teenage girl doesn't dream of a hilariously sarcastic slab of 42-year-old Kentucky ham?

I kid because I think Riggle is awesome, and a near-total cartoon character in person.  What I find most interesting about his role in "The Lorax" is how completely opposite his character in the film is from him physically.  They couldn't have designed a more different character for him to play if they'd tried.  Riggle fills a room with his booming voice and his carved-from-beef physicality.  He's a big guy.  His character in "The Lorax," however, is about as tiny as can be, with a weird creepy haircut and a classic case of little-man syndrome.

Efron, on the other hand, has the unenviable task of playing Ted, who stands in for Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.  The filmmakers have named the young couple in the film "Ted" and "Audrey," after the author and his second wife, and so there's a little extra added weight for the love story to work, at least if Illumination Entertainment hopes to keep Audrey Geisel happy as they prepare to work with her on the biopic about her husband and his work.

No pressure, right?

I thought it would be nice to keep these guys together, since they're basically the moral poles of the film, and this way you get both the good guy and the bad guy in one convenient place.  You'll see Zac Efron at the top of the story and Rob Riggle embedded below... 

 ... and tomorrow, I'll bring you my very surprising (to me, anyway) interview with Efron's love interest in the film, the uber-charming Taylor Swift.

"The Lorax" opens in theaters this Friday.

Drew McWeeny
Film Editor

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A respected critic and commentator for fifteen years, Drew McWeeny helped create the online film community as "Moriarty" at Ain't It Cool News, and now proudly leads two budding Film Nerds in their ongoing movie education.