The Cat in the Hat (2003)

The Cat in the Hat (also known as Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat) is a 2003 American fantasy comedy film directed by Bo Welch in his directorial debut and written by Alec Berg, David Mandel and Jeff Schaffer. Loosely based on Dr. Seuss's 1957 book of the same name, it was the second and final live-action feature-length Dr. Seuss adaptation after How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). The film stars Mike Myers in the title role along with Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston, Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin, Amy Hill and Sean Hayes in supporting roles.
Production on the film began in 1997 with Tim Allen originally cast in the title role. After Allen dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with The Santa Clause 2 (2002), the role went to Myers. Filming took place in California and lasted three months from October 2002 to January 2003. As with the previous Dr. Seuss adaptation, many new characters and subplots were added to the story to bring it up to feature-length.
The Cat in the Hat was released in theaters on November 21, 2003 in the United States by Universal Pictures and internationally by DreamWorks Pictures. It received extremely negative reviews from critics, who criticized the humor, the designs of the Cat and Thing One and Thing Two, the performances, and lack of faithfulness to the original story. It underperformed at the box office, grossing $133.9 million against a budget of $109 million. The Cat in the Hat appears on several lists of the worst films ever made. Seuss's widow, Audrey Geisel, was dissatisfied with the film and prohibited any further live-action adaptations of her husband's works, resulting in the cancellation of a sequel based on The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. Beginning with Horton Hears a Who! (2008), all Dr. Seuss film adaptations have since been produced using computer animation.
In March 2012, an animated remake was announced by Universal and Illumination, but never came to fruition. As of January 2018, that remake is once again in development, now at Warner Bros. Pictures Animation.
== Plot: ==
Conrad and Sally Walden live in the city of Anville with their single mother Joan, who works for neat-freak Hank Humberfloob as a real estate agent and is dating their next-door neighbor Larry Quinn. Sally is well-behaved and rule-obeying, while Conrad is a troublemaker. One day, Joan leaves her children at home with babysitter Mrs. Kwan while she goes to the office, forbidding them to enter the living room which is being kept pristine for an office party she is hosting that night.
After Mrs. Kwan falls asleep and it starts to rain, a bump comes from the closet. Sally and Conrad go upstairs to investigate, and they meet The Cat in the Hat, a large anthropomorphic talking cat with a red-and-white striped top hat and a large red bow tie. They scream, run and try to hide, but The Cat quickly comes to them as he introduces himself and wants to teach them how to have fun. In the process, the Cat leaves a trail of destruction throughout the house and releases two troublemakers, named Thing 1 and Thing 2, from a crate which he locks and forbids the children to tamper with, explaining that it is a portal to his world. Despite the Cat's warning, Conrad picks the lock on the crate, which grabs on to the collar of the family dog Nevins, who runs off. The trio drive the Cat's super-powered car to search for Nevins and get the lock back.
Larry is revealed to be an unemployed slob in debt, pretending to be a successful businessman in order to marry Joan for her money. He wants to get Conrad out of the way by sending him to military school. Larry sees Nevins and takes him, but the Cat tricks Larry into returning the dog. Larry goes and tells Joan about the Cat, but they are stalled by the Things' posing as police officers. Larry tells Joan to meet him at the house.
When the children and the Cat return to the house with the lock, Larry cuts them off and orders them inside the house, where he sneezes uncontrollably due to his allergy to the Cat, who takes advantage of this and scares him away, only for them to find out that the house has been transformed into "The Mother of All Messes", with Larry falling into a gooey abyss. The Cat, Sally and Conrad ride on Mrs. Kwan like a roller coaster and navigate through the surreal house on a river of goo to find the crate and lock it, whereupon the house returns to its normal proportions but immediately collapses. In a heated argument, the children discover that the Cat planned the whole day and order him to leave.
Conrad and Sally prepare to face the consequences when Joan comes home. However, when all appears to be lost, the Cat returns with a cleaning invention and fixes the house. Conrad and Sally reconcile with the Cat and thank him for everything, and he departs just as Joan arrives. Larry, covered in goo, comes in, thinking he has busted the children, but when Joan sees the clean house, she does not believe his story and dumps him. After the successful party, Joan spends quality time with her children by jumping on the couch with them, while the Cat and Things 1 and 2 walk off into the sunset.
== Why This Cat Falls Flat: ==
# Executive meddling: The movie was supposed to be more in line with the book just like the cartoon special, while retaining its family-friendly subject matter and sticking to the source material. However, once the live-action Grinch film (which Universal also distributed) turned out to be a box-office hit, the studios wanted this movie to replicate that film and its success.
#* By drastically rewriting the script, adding in numerous random jokes, innuendos, characters, scenes that are inappropriate for the original target audience, and having not great casting choices, it made the movie completely unfaithful and insulting to the source material, and effectively ruins a lot of charm and charisma from the original book.
#* In fact, that would more likely be suitable for a PG-13 or an R rating rather than a PG-rated movie.
#* While the 2000 live-action Grinch adaptation wasn’t perfect in its way and still has some innuendos and dark and serious tone, it at least tries to be faithful to the original source material.
#* Even the animated Grinch film from 2018 and the 2012 version of the Lorax (which Universal also distributed), while also not perfect, at least they both try to stay faithful to the original source material.
# Similar to the Grinch from the 2000 live-action adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Cat is very much the opposite of his book, the 1971 cartoon special, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss and TV special counterparts, he was more likable and memorable, and was never a legitimate threat. In this movie however, he is sadly more of a sadistic threat who is more of an antagonist than a hero.
#* In particular, he mocks Larry for being allergic to him and then he proceeds to push him off a cliff and he literally stands there and does nothing but smile when Sally and Conrad find the crate open and the former almost gets sucked in. To add insult to injury, when the house collapses and falls apart after Conrad locks the crate, The Cat laughs sadistically, bragging that he "did it" (until changing it to we did it after seeing the looks on Conrad and Sally’s faces). Conrad and Sally scold him for destroying the house, telling him if they shut the crate, then they would be okay. He then asks Conrad and Sally to play tennis with him until they found out that he had his hat all along, which proved that he lied about losing his hat at the club. He then admits that he knew everything that was going to happen as he planned the entire day, including remorselessly putting Sally, Conrad and Larry in near-death experiences.
# At one point, The Cat wants to cut his losses and ditch the kids, even though he knew the kids would suffer at the hands of Larry. Unlike his book and TV special counterpart, this just proves that he’s selfish as he only cares about himself, thus making him very unlikable and mean throughout, and another example of this ignorance is shown when the Things are messing up the house, he tells Mrs. Kwan while she was sleeping that if it were his house, he would be furious about it, and then proceeds to laugh.
#* Additionally, he never shows any remorse or regret for all the chaos he causes throughout.
#* In addition, he is also shown to be very stupid as shown when Conrad and Sally tell him to leave, he thought it was a game.
# The Cat himself thinks he can't rhyme, which is ironic, considering that his rhyming was one of the reasons why the original book was so beloved (despite the fact he does rhyme in a few scenes).
# Like the Cat (and similar to the Whos from the live action film adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas), Conrad and Sally are also flanderized and are nothing compared to their book counterparts, as Sally is a bossy, hypocritical, and controlling girl who is very sycophantic to her friends and believes the world revolves around her, and Conrad is now a rule-breaking, irresponsible, and destructive brat who breaks the rules for fun and throws a fit when things don't go his way. He even says to his mother, "I wish I had a different mom", which is just laughably bad.
#* For example, Sally lies by claiming she told Conrad to not mess up the house when she never said anything and she even tries to convince her mother to ground him.
# It adds some pointless characters who never appeared in the original book. For example:
#* Larry Quinn (the antagonist of the movie), the Walden family's greedy, lazy, arrogant, and unemployed next-door neighbor who bullies Conrad, manipulates Joan and Sally, and plans to marry Joan for her money and send Conrad to military school. Although don't get us wrong, Alec Baldwin's performance is good as mentioned below on RQ#9, despite the bad script he was given.
#** Ms. Kwan is a fat lazy babysitter who does nothing but sleep instead of doing her job, and she hardly has a lot of screen time in the movie.
#** Mr. Hank Humberfloob (although Sean Hayes' performance is good as mentioned below on RQ#9), Joan's germophobic boss who is an absolute perfectionist, fired a worker for shaking his unwashed hand and requested a party at Joan's house.
# It adds a bunch of inappropriate (for kids) and disgusting humor and innuendos:
#* When Larry tells Conrad about how he is going to send him to military school, he nearly calls him a "Little Son of a bitch" before Joan walks back in, which he picks him up and pretends to love him.
#* In two scenes (one of which was deleted), the Cat lusts over a picture of Joan at one point to the point his hat enlarges (implying he has an erection), which is quite disturbing for a PG-rated movie. The Cat in the Hat himself is technically an animal, so him lusting over Joan and Paris Hilton (later on, and mentioned below) is actually considered bestiality.
#** In the deleted scene, we get to see the full picture of their mother. She is seen in a bikini, which explains why his hat enlarged earlier in the actual movie.
#* When the Cat scans Sally with the "Phunometer", the Arrow Gauge points at a section labelled "Serial Arsonist" (which means committing an offense by fire), then The Cat taps on the machine and it switches to "Control Freak".
#* During the part where The Cat sings the "Fun" song, he almost mentions a boy who got sent to a vet who cut off his balls before he quickly changes it to "Boy that wasn't fun". Similarly, in a deleted scene where sings this song, he nearly mentions a girl who had bugs up her ass before he changed it to "Ask me was it fun?"
#* The Cat, after drinking a bottle of milk, gets fat and claims it's gonna come back to haunt him and his stomach gets big, implying the milk will give him diarrhea. After this phrase, he makes a huge and unfunny burp and he returns to his natural size.
#* The Cat, at one point, dresses up as a trucker, shows his butt, and farts at the audience.
#* The Cat, while jumping on the couch, mentions it’s a circus without the tortured animals and drunken clowns that have hepatitis.
#* If you look closely, there's an alcohol reference in a PG-rated movie where Larry comes into the house to steal beer.
#* The Cat telling the host he’ll get him and make it look like a bloody accident.
#* The Cat yelling "SON OF A BI-" after he accidentally chops off his tail, before getting cut off by a "HANG IN THERE BABY!" screen.
#* When the Cat has cupcake mixture on his finger, he tries to get Sally and Conrad to eat it, implying that he has a booger on his finger.
#* Larry, secretly fat, is seen watching a TV show of a topless woman dancing as the cable guys repossess his TV. And after the cable guys repossess the TV, he is seen scratching his belly button. To add extra salt into the wound, the woman on screen can be heard moaning if you listen carefully.
#* The Cat’s infamous “Dirty hoe!” line. Immediately after, he attempts to make out with it after apologizing for nothing.
#* The scene where the Cat disguises himself as a piñata and one of the guests hits him in the crotch, which is animal abuse.
#** When distracted, The Cat attempts to whack the kid with the bat.
#* Nevins pees on Larry's meal in his car.
#* The Cat showing his car in which he calls it the "Super Hydraulic Instantaneous Transporter" (S.H.I.T.) before he changed its name to "Super Luxurious Omnidirectional Whatchamajigger" (S.L.O.W.) to prevent Conrad from saying the acronym of the previous name (which is actually a profane swear word).
#* The roller coaster scene where the toilet is lit on fire (which is the same scene where the Cat shows Universal pamphlets), the Cat almost says "Something really burns my ass" but the roller coaster falls before he can fully say it.
#* After getting off of Ms. Kwan, when The Cat receives the picture of them on the roller coaster, the picture shows him vomiting in a bag.
#* After getting kicked out by Joan, Larry tries to woo Joan back to his side, but he sneezes and the purple goo comes on to his hands from his nose after she rejects him, which exposes his true nature.
# There is also a scene where he lusts over a totally out-of-place cameo of Paris Hilton.
#* Immediately after the Cat and the kids leave the club, the Cat once again gets attracted to her by licking himself nonstop.
# The movie also adds extra morals that are incredibly forced and unnecessary instead of following the book's moral.
# There is absolutely no character development for anyone.
# False advertising: Some trailers showed scenes that aren't even in the actual movie such as the Cat hiding from Conrad and Sally on the living room ceiling and the Cat opening the door to the house.
# There is one infamous scene that gives an insult to the pro-democracy protesters in Taiwan like when the kids and Kwan watched the TV coverage of a mass fight in the Taiwanese Parliament, which happened in real life.
# Flawed and unintentionally creepy character designs and makeup, most notably with the Cat and Thing 1 and 2. For example:
#* The costume design for the Cat doesn’t even look like a cat. He looks more like a giant skunk (depending on your opinion).
#* Thing 1 and Thing 2 look awkward, maybe even weird and terrifying. Even worse, they're all just ordinary human beings and performed by live performers with digital upper lips added, which in turn was a failed attempt to translate the original 2D character designs into live-action.
#* The Fish, though his appearance is quite hard to hard to describe at best, can be described as similar-looking to many things. The best way he could be described is that his face looks nothing like what his book counter part was, and is really creepy to look.
#** Speaking of, even if the design of the fish in the book counterpart didn't look like an actual goldfish, or really any fish, still, his design can still be considered close to an actual fish. Then again, it wouldn't be a good idea to even put him in a live action film, as if you were to think of a similar design, there wouldn't be really any good way to make him look cartoonish.
#* By carefully looking at some of the humans (excluding Sally, Conrad, Joan and Larry), they look somewhat plastic-like, same as the Fish, Thing 1 and Thing 2, the Cat, and the entire town that they live in.
# The movie also features product placement in a few scenes:
#* Perhaps the most infamous scene where the Cat shows Universal Studios pamphlets during the climax. For a few seconds, the movie even has to pause, just so he can point out the pamphlets.
#* Everyone in the movie drove a Ford (except for the Cat). Everyone in the town of Anville drove a Ford Focus, except for Larry, who drove a different Ford, a 2002 Thunderbird.
#* In the bonus features, there's a deleted scene where Joan plays Conrad's Game Boy Advance.
# Lackluster and outdated special effects and visuals, even by early 2000s standards.
# Most of the conflicts were incredibly forced and unconvincing, particularly the conflict between Conrad and Joan. They have little to no buildup to be so harsh in each other's words.
# There are some plot holes:
#* There's a scene with Joan not seeing through the Things disguise when if they choke each other, which obviously reveals their actual size.
#* A scene where Sally discovers that none of her ex-friends invited her to their birthday party; the movie holds on to this scene for a few seconds, which makes the viewers think that Sally will reconcile with her friends, but the movie then instead decides to abandon Sally's arc for no apparent reason, although there is a deleted scene of that (see below).
#* During the scene where The Cat pretend to be a piñata at the birthday party, one of the kids hits him in the groin, which causes him severe pain. This contradicts the lyrics to one of The Cat’s songs as the lyrics strongly implies that he got castrated at the vet, meaning that he should not have felt as much pain from the piñata blow.
# The acting (for the most part) is increasingly weak, especially Mike Myers' performance as the Cat, as well as Spencer Breslin as Conrad and Dakota Fanning as Sally.
#* Conrad and Sally show little to no personality throughout the movie, and in particular, Conrad sounds like he has something in his mouth.
#* Unfortunately, Mike Myers was one of the only actors available at the time to play the Cat (see Trivia down below).
# There are multiple times where the Cat himself acts like he agrees with the rules Conrad and Sally tell him, only to purposely break them right after.
#* For example, when Sally tells him that their mom said they can't jump on the couch, he acts like he agrees only for him to purposely say "not like this!" and then proceeds to mess up the couch.
# The romance sub-plot of Joan and Larry feels pointless and serves no purpose to the actual story.
# There is a scene when the Cat tricks Larry into handing over Nevins, he dresses up like a Jamaican stereotype, which can be racist and offensive to Jamaican people.
# Not so great direction by Bo Welch.
# Due to this movie not doing very well at the box office and the negative reviews it got (similar to what Batman & Robin did), it permanently killed Bo Welch's directing career, as well as cancelling the sequel The Cat in the Hat Comes Back (which is a follow-up to the original book).
#* And also, due to the negative reviews this movie got, Audrey Geisel (who is Dr. Seuss' widow) decided not to allow any further live-action movie adaptations of his work.
# In a earlier scene when Conrad asks The Cat how he got to their house he says he drove there, but later on when he mentions his car to get Nevins back from Larry, Conrad confusedly asks "You have a car?".
#* This just proves that it cares so little for its own continuity.
# The pacing isn't all that great.
# Anachronism: The movie, while having its exact date unknown and having some fantasy aspects included in it, has a lot of aesthetics that look akin to that of the 1950’s and 1960’s due to the attire the characters wear, their fashion choices, and the architecture of the buildings, yet for some reason, people are seen driving modern cars and Conrad is seen playing a Game Boy, which had not been invented in the 1950’s and 60’s.
== Redeeming Qualities: ==
# Although there's a lot of poor grasp of the source material as mentioned above, the movie still has a few faithful moments to the book and the 1971 cartoon, such as Things 1 and 2 messing up the whole house and the Cat cleaning it up with a cleaning machine near the end.
#* Some of the sets and props also carry the Dr. Seuss look and feel.
#* Additionally, the opening logos and some of the opening credits are entirely animated in Dr. Seuss' distinctive style, unlike the 2000 Grinch movie, with the Universal Pictures logo turning into a star ball, the Cat fishing on the moon in the DreamWorks Pictures logo, and Fish swimming in the water in the Imagine Entertainment logo..
# David Newman's soundtrack and his score is fitting and amazing most of the time, so are the songs courtesy of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.
# While the humor tends to be weak and most of the dialogue is laughable as mentioned above, there are still some funny moments, plenty of memorable quotes and lines, despite some of them being inappropriate for a PG-rated movie. For example:
#* The "Kupkake-Inator" scene.
#* "Honey, it was ruined when she bought it."
#* "YOU'RE FIRRRRRRRRREEEEEE-DUH!"
#* "If this were my house, I'd be furious."
#* "No more big government."
#* "I'M SO EXCITED!"
#* The scene where Larry falls down the cliff yelling "Judas Priest!"
#* "Get out of my way, you hippie freak."
#* "Yes, but not this Philippines."
#* "How many shots?"
#* "I'll get you, and it'll look like a bloody accident!"
#** "Shut up! I mean it! I will end you!"
#* "Alright, Nevins...time to die!"
#* "NOBODY LIKES A SUCK UP!"
#* "Wait a minute, two people can't drive at the same time!" "You're right... we should all drive!"
#* "I think there's something wrong with your brakes, when's the last time you had them checked?" (said while holding the severed brake pedal)
#* "I don't know, there's this little voice inside my head that's saying, "This is a bad idea", but I can hardly hear that little voice because at the same time an even louder voice is screaming, "LET THE TWELVE-YEAR-OLD DRIVE!!""
#* "A monster! Where?”
#* "Airbag... standard."
#* "You're not just wrong, you're stupid."
#** "And you're ugly just like your mom."
#* The scene where the Cat shows the kids his car, but turns out to be a dust cover revealing the S.L.O.W.
#* "I can't believe you whizzed on my taco!"
#* "Just sign my petition... with this large, oversized pen that requires two hands."
#* "Thing 2 would like to clarify that just because he wears the number '2' does not imply in any way that he is inferior to Thing 1. He says you may feel free to call him 'Thing A', if you like. He will also accept 'Super Thing', 'Thing King', 'Kid Dynamite', 'CHOCOLATE THUN-DA'...Or 'Ben.'"
#* "You don't try. You do." "(nervous) Yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am.
#* "Cupcakes? OH YEAH!"
#* Even if it was actually animal abuse (as mentioned above), the Cat does get some karma for his actions by getting hit in the crotch and when the kids tell him to get out and leave.
# Some of the characters are tolerable, such as the fish, since he isn't flanderized compared to the Cat, Conrad, and Sally (even if his design looks weird as mentioned above).
#* In fact, the fish might be the only likable character because he acts like the voice of reason.
# The design of the S.L.O.W. is a pretty awesome vehicle, although it wasn't really in the book.
# At least the tone/atmosphere of this movie is somewhat a little bit more lighter compared to the live action Grinch movie's slightly dark and eerie one, and due to how bad it is, it could also be considered so bad it's good.
# The Cat himself does actually rhyme in a few instances.
# The cinematography, although indecent, is quite good.
# Although most of the acting is weak as mentioned above, some of the acting is actually good, despite their actors being wasted. For example:
#* The late Kelly Preston gives a good performance as Joan Walden.
#* Alec Baldwin gives a fitting performance as Larry Quinn.
#* Sean Hayes' performance as Hank Humberfloob is funny.
# Larry getting dumped by Joan at the end is satisfying, especially seeing him blubber.
#* In face, one of the deleted scenes gives him a funny comeuppance.
# Just like Battlefield Earth, this movie could've had some potential to be a good live-action adaptation of the book, but due to the bad script and not great attempts at humor, it was poorly executed compared to the book it was based on, which is much better.
#* Not only that, if this movie did a lot better at the box office, we would've gotten the sequel The Cat in the Hat Comes Back.
== Reception: ==
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has an approval rating of 10% based on 164 reviews and an average rating of 3.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Filled with double entendres and potty humor, this Cat falls flat."
On Metacritic, the film has a score of 19 out of 100 based on reviews from 37 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike".
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.
OMW gave an approval rating of 10% based on 309 users, with the website's consenus reading, "Unoriginal and unfunny, The Cat in the Hat offers further proof that not even the healthiest box office receipt can keep a book series from slouching towards creative extinction."