Movie Quick Take: Cat in the Hat (2004)

I wanted so bad to walk out on this, it was almost too painful to keep watching, and my ticket was free! The only even slightly positive thing I can say about this movie is that the set design was inventive and colorful. In terms of story, dialogue, set-pieces, acting, this movie was terrible. This is proof that Dr. Seuss stories should not be translated to feature length films (although I did like The Grinch, go figure).



Watching Mike Myers go through with these antics, you have to wonder why he allowed himself to be put into this situation, he is such a talented comedian yet even his talent could not survive the translation through the make up. Alec Baldwin just looked out of place. I really felt sorry for Dakota Fanning, she is a delightful young actress who was good in the Sci-Fi Channel's mini-series Taken, and downright terrific in the recent Man on Fire.

The screening I was at for this only had a handful of other viewers, and a couple of those even walked out. There were off-color jokes, that while they would go over the heads of the younger viewers were completely out of place in this film. There was also a lot of mean-spirited comedy, mostly at the expense of the comatose babysitter. Not to mention utter annoyances known as Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Don't get me wrong, off-color jokes and mean-spirited comedy can be very funny, but in the right film, not something inspired by Seuss and targeted at children. This is easily one of the worst films ever produced by a major studio, it has high production values, but low on everything else. In place of this, I would recommend director PJ Hogan's recent version of Peter Pan, now there is a wonderful movie that the whole family can view together.

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