The Cat in the Hat (2003) Universal/Comedy-Fantasy RT: 82 minutes Rated PG (mild crude humor, some double-entendres) Director: Bo Welch Screenplay: Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer Music: David Newman Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki Release date: November 21, 2003 (US) Cast: Mike Myers, Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston, Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin, Amy Hill, Sean Hayes, Danielle Ryan Chuchran, Taylor Rice, Brittany Oaks, Talia Prairie, Dan Castellaneta, Victor Brandt. Box Office: $101.1M (US)/$133.9M (World)
Rating: ½ *
For sixteen years, The Cat in the Hat went uncontested as Worst Cat Movie EVER. Then late last year, the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Cats stepped forward to challenge it for the title. It was close, but the live-action adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ popular children’s book is still the clump…. I mean, champ…. no, I do mean clump by a knock-out.
I can say with absolute certainty if Dr. Seuss (aka Theodor Geisel) was still alive, he’d be horrified to see what Hollywood did to his book. It would kill him. They took something beautiful and totally f***ed it up. Please excuse my vulgar language but “f***ed up” seems the only right way to describe this ugly, miserable and unpleasant excuse for kid-friendly entertainment. I haven’t been this thoroughly disenchanted by a supposed movie for children since The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. The Cat in the Hat is just like something you’d find in a garbage pail. It’s rotten and it stinks.
I doubt there’s a single person out there who didn’t have The Cat in the Hat read to them as a child. Generations of kids have listened, laughed and loved the story of the cat in the red and white-striped hat. It’s a fun and easy read and it can be read in a single sitting. That’s not a lot of material to work with. In order to turn it into a feature length movie, the three writers had to come up with additional material to pad it out. That’s where it goes horribly, horrifyingly wrong.
The Cat in the Hat now has character development. Instead of two bored kids with nothing to do on a rainy day, we get two annoying kids with nothing to do on a rainy day. The boy is Conrad (Breslin, The Kid), a 12YO troublemaker who always does the opposite of what he’s told. The girl is younger sister Sally (Fanning, Uptown Girls), a humorless perfectionist who habitually kisses up to any adult in close proximity. The one thing they have in common is the ability to work the nerves of everybody they meet. These are two kids in dire need of a valuable life lesson…. and a spanking.
The mother Joan (Preston, Jack Frost) is a single working mom. She’s works for a shrieking germophobe (Hayes, Will & Grace) who demands she hold an important reception in her home which must be absolutely immaculate or else. Before leaving her little darlings in the incapable hands of a last-minute babysitter (Hill, Magnum P.I.), Joan lays down a few ground rules, the most important one being nobody is allowed in the living room for ANY reason. IS SHE MENTAL? She must be if she thinks they’ll really not mess up the house while she’s away.
The sitter promptly falls asleep leaving her charges with nothing to do but sit and stare out the window. Then they hear a clatter upstairs. They go to investigate and find the Cat hanging around. They’re understandably freaked by the big talking cat in their house, but surprisingly receptive to his offer to teach them how to have fun. Of course, his idea of having fun is making a big mess with the help of his two minions, Thing One and Thing Two.
The writers don’t stop there. Why stop when there’s more damage that can done to a cherished part of many a childhood? They add a stupid subplot about a key to the Cat’s magic crate, a portal to the world he and his Things come from. The family dog absconds with it. The Cat and the kids have to leave the house to get it back so they can lock the crate before the house gets sucked into a gooey abyss or some such nonsense. They also give Mom a love life of sorts. She’s dating the next-door neighbor Lawrence (Baldwin, Thomas and the Magic Railroad), a secretly unemployed bum who’s only after her money. He keeps pushing the idea of shipping Conrad off to military school. How does she not see that this guy is a jerk and a bully? Oh yeah, there’s also a talking goldfish (voiced by Hayes) who serves as the sole voice of reason.
There are many, many, MANY reasons why The Cat in the Hat fails as miserably as it does. I think it’s only proper we start at the top with the title character. Design-wise, the Cat in the Hat is one of the creepiest creations I’ve ever seen in ANY movie. It looks like something out of a nightmare. It makes the cats in Cats look positively feline. It’s freaking freaky looking! The person mainly responsible for this is special effects artist Steve Johnson. He shares the blame with Myers who creates one of the most unlikable characters ever committed to film. His Cat is a total dick. He’s obnoxious, manipulative and perverted. He alternates between talking like the Cowardly Lion and his Linda Richman character from SNL. At times, he tries to channel Jim Carrey’s manic energy in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but it only makes him look desperate. What they do to the character is creative assault and battery.
What’s really sad is that Myers is a talented comic actor. He created some great characters on SNL. His Austin Powers is the best goof on James Bond and other 60s-era secret agents EVER! He really coughs up a hairball with this “performance”. The rest of the cast isn’t much better. Preston turns in the least embarrassing performance of the bunch. Her character’s only real fault is being clueless. Baldwin, on the other hand, ought to be ashamed. He plays a man that bullies children. Such a character has no place in the world of innocence conceived by Seuss. When you take into account the infamous 2007 “little pig” incident with his preteen daughter, his involvement with The Cat in the Hat can be construed as an early cry for help. I did NOT like those kids, not even a little bit. Together they make a strong argument for birth control. I don’t even know what to say about Hayes as the boss but the term “gay stereotype” fits in there somewhere.
Bo Welch, a production designer directing his first and last feature, goes the extra step with The Cat in the Hat by throwing in inappropriate humor involving jokes about erections, butt cracks, hits to the groin, neutering and “dirty hoes”. There’s a bit involving an acronym that spells a certain four-letter word beginning with S. None of it is funny, it’s disgusting. There’s also a scene where the Cat and kids end up at a rave with Paris Hilton dressed in an outfit too revealing for a PG movie. Although it’s doubtful the little ones will get these jokes, there’s always the vindictive older sibling looking to get even with Mom and/or Dad for dragging them to a kid’s movie against their will. I’m sure they’ll happily explain what the parents won’t.
The one and only semi-complimentary thing I can say about The Cat in the Hat is that the production design isn’t awful. It’s not ugly and dingy like The Grinch. It doesn’t look like it was shot through a drab green filter. This one is bathed in a lime shade of green. There are a few, a VERY few, nice touches like the Cat’s car with three steering wheels. It briefly, VERY briefly, reminds the viewer they’re in Dr. Seuss’ world. Then the feeling vanishes. The CGI, especially where the two Things are concerned, is terrible. They’re almost as creepy as the Cat. The climax, which takes place in a surreal amusement park, is less trippy than hellish. It’s okay though; by this point, adult viewers’ eyes will have glazed over. Like me, they’re just waiting for the pain to end.
If The Cat in the Hat is painful for kids in the double-digits, imagine what it’s like for the poor parents forced to sit through it. It’s pure torture and not just because it’s terrible. It’s an insult to the source material, the author and those who love his work. It captures absolutely none of the fun or humor. It even botches Seuss’ trademark prose. Even at 82 minutes, this hairball of a movie is still a slog. Is it any wonder the widow Geisel won’t allow any more live-action adaptations of her husband’s books? I don’t mind saying that The Cat in the Hat is a complete CAT-astrophe more befitting a litter box than a screen.
