THE CAT IN THE HAT - REVIEW


I wonder how many kids growing up reading Dr Seuss' Cat In The Hat ever pictured an overweight Alec Baldwin holding a six-pack of beer in the story let alone Mike Myers in cat drag!

Oh well...

Initially the film looks appropriately quirky and cartoonish but soon we realise that the story mostly takes place in a living room so goodbye slick CGI suburbia, hello boring pastel-coloured...indoors. Because that's what kids enjoy:

Indoors.

Anyway, you remember everything that didn't work in Ron Howard's The Grinch? The noisy, chaotic direction, the messy musical numbers, the intrusive score, the erratic editing, the overacting...

Yeah that's all back.

The Grinch could be forgiven for being a Christmas movie and for having an ever entertaining Jim Carrey as the titular green grump. Here, however, we're given a rushed, dumb, predictable mess of a kids film with Mike Myers desperately trying to insert some jokes here and there and there's really no real reason for it.

With source material this short, it's usually a good idea to focus on what makes the charm of the story rather than silly, idiotic jokes and it can be done right, as Spike Jonze's Where The Wild Things Are demonstrated. Unfortunately this "cat" is about as charming, funny or heartwarming as a dead horse with a live feline up its ass.

An animation like Horton Hears A Who would really have been more appropriate and potentially...dare I say it? Good?

Myers and Baldwin amuse here and there and some of the visuals are creative, otherwise the whole thing is just way too chaotic to be enjoyable and child actor Spencer Breslin is particularly dire. To be fair though, with a director this hyperactive, the latter can't be blamed too much.

He is rubbish though...

Unless you're 5 years old or a die-hard Alec Baldwin fan (you're weird) I'd say avoid. I mean, the film has a cameo appearance from PARIS HILTON of all people! Care to explain to your kids which "film" made her famous?

Awkward.

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