Conrad (12) and Sally (10) are left alone at home, while their mother forbids them to make any mess, since she plans a home party involving her co-workers and her extremely germophobic boss. A giant humanoid Cat with a hat shows up and plays games with the kids, but his two assistants Thing 1 and 2 cause a mess. The Cat and the kids chase after Larry, their mom’s arrogant suitor, who took their dog to the city to frame and discredit the kids. They get back home, but it practically falls apart because Conrad opened the Cat’s magic inter-dimensional crate. The Crate cleans up the house, and mom is able to hold the party with her boss.
The movie that signaled the decay of comedian Mike Myers' talent (though that was already hinted at through several crude jokes in "Austin Powers 2"), "The Cat in the Hat" is a clumsy adaptation of Dr. Seuss' eponymous short children's book overstretched into a feature length film with unnecessary and excessive zany bits, though it is still watchable. Myers plays the title Cat as some sort of weird, hypermanic combination of Mary Poppins, Beetlejuice and Austin Powers, where the jokes mostly feel empty, forced or contrived, though he tries to be a cartoon character who strives to be untrammeled by any rules of reality. In one rare funny sequence that proves otherwise, the Cat is driving in a vehicle with the two kids, and gives his steering wheel to Conrad (12), who thinks that’s a bad idea, but the Cat goes: “A little voice inside of me is saying: ‘This is a bad idea!’, but I can barely hear that little voice because an even louder little voice is screaming: ‘Let the 12-year old drive!’”. As he even gives another wheel to Sally, and then adds a third one to himself, the vehicle starts spinning around its axis. In another charming bit, after inciting the kids to play games and leaving a whole mess in their house, the Cat admits: "If this were my house, I would be furious." Too many jokes backfire (in one lame one, the Cat dresses up as a plumber, with a butt-crack included on his pants); Sean Hayes is sadly underused in the role of the germophobic boss in the opening act; whereas the ending involving an interdimensional portal on Cat's crate is ludicrous. The movie fails to capture the simple charm of Dr. Seuss' book and the lesson learned by Conrad of constantly doing everything the opposite of what he is told, but some ideas are just so goddam insane they almost feel creative.
Grade:+
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