The Cat In The Hat

What's the Plot?

Conrad and Sally Walden (Spencer Breslin and Dakota Fanning) are about to have a very special day indeed. Their single mom, Joan (Kelly Preston), who has been pushed to the edge by their bickering, is seriously considering military school for the wayward Conrad who likes to indoor luge down the stairs. This would please Joan's smarmy suitor and next-door neighbour, Lawrence (Alec Baldwin) no end, who needs him out of the way to move in on Joan. However, today she has the dubious pleasure of hosting a party for her germophobe boss, Mr. Humberfloob (Sean Hayes) and her work colleagues, so she lays down a mom-sized decree: the children are not allowed to leave the house and, most importantly, they are not allowed in the living room where the party is to take place. With Joan out, the children settle in for a boring day until something, or someone, unexpectedly arrives. A six-foot-tall talking feline, sporting a red-and-white-striped stovepipe hat, a jaunty bow tie and an over-sized appetite for fun and mayhem wants to show them that "it's good to have fun." Can the house, Joan, Conrad and Sally survive the Cat In The Hat's (Mike Myers) idea of fun? Or will they lose it all and Conrad end up in military school?

The Review

Director Ron Howard kept some control over his star Carrey as The Grinch, but still allowed him to shine along with the co-stars. First-time director Bo Welch, does not appeared to have done the same on his Dr. Suess project. This comes across as a kind of "Mike Myers TV special" which is not a bad thing, just not what you expect when watching a "family flick." The best - Toy Story, Shrek - get that fine balance right so that the adults as well as the kids all get a laugh at specific jokes.

Myers' Cat, unfortunately, does not achieve this. The one joke for adults, which, admittedly, is very funny - "dirty ol' hoe" - sticks out like a sore thumb alongside the cartoony antics and childish japes that appear every time The Cat is on screen. The sets are wonderful: the town looks like an abandoned project from a Tim Burton film mixed with The Grinch; the costumes are just the right side of weird and wonderful; Baldwin's suck-up suitor is as annoyingly evil as Kyle Machlain's boss from The Flintstone's; all the ingredients are there, it's just that they don't come together, even in the film's incredibly short running time - 82 minutes. Myers is good as The Cat, but there's a slight whiff of Eddie Murphy and his Nutty Professor syndrome. Murphy played nearly every role in that film, and it's sequel, and you get the feeling that Myers goes through his entire comic repertoire in this one.

From all the characters in his Austin Powers trilogy (Fat Bastard, Dr. Evil and, of course, Austin himself), through to his early So I Married An Axe Murderer, they all make an appearance in the cat suit, which, although you can understand him wanting to make the role his own, does push the limit just a tad too far. That aside, it's a film that the younger kids will adore with it's cool CGI effects - the "Thing 1 and Thing 2" beings are especially good - and silly humour, where nearly all the adults get their just desserts. As with most family films, the adults won't probably feel so happy about it.

STEVE'S SCORES