By Geno McGahee
The SHREK franchise and the AUSTIN POWERS franchise in the early 2000s made Mike Myers a big player in Hollywood. In 2000, Jim Carrey became the title character in HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS and made a huge profit leading to the idea to expand on the Dr. Seuss universe with Myers in the lead of CAT IN THE HAT.
On the surface, it made a lot of sense. Myers and Carrey were, arguably, the biggest comedic stars in Hollywood and I’m sure that doing a crossover was in the works, until CAT IN THE HAT was released. The film lost a lot of money and Dr. Seuss was spinning in his grave I’m sure and the audience that sat through it suffered as I just did.
Mom (Kelly Preston) has two children. Sally (Dakota Fanning) and Conrad (Spencer Breslin) are both problematic with Sally being considered a control freak and Conrad being considered a troublemaker and they both live up or down to it. Mom works for a real estate company and her boss, Mr. Humberfloob (Sean Hayes), is deathly afraid of germs. The filmmakers must have thought it was funny how Hayes delivered “you’re fired” because they had him do it several times.
I don’t think Mr. Humberfloob came from the mind of Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss would probably say “suck this Humberfloob” to the filmmakers responsible for this movie. Poor Seuss. All he wanted to do was make books for kids and they got him roped into this shit.
So, the two kids are left home alone as Mom is called back to work and, out of nowhere, the Cat in the Hat (Myers) shows up and is as unfunny as he’s ever been. Now, I’ll say that I enjoyed SHREK and even liked the first AUSTIN POWERS movie, but fuck, Myers is not that funny and this film is a great example of how his “look at me, I’m being funny” thing does not work. It’s not as bad as Dana Carvey, but not that far away from it. I guess Myers can be happy. Next to MASTER OF DISGUISE, he made a masterpiece.
I want to give credit where it’s due. They did good work creating a world and building sets, even if they are ugly. They put a lot of effort into making this movie look a specific way, much like HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS did, but that’s one of only a couple positives for this one.
Myers is so fucking terribly abrasive in this film. He’s unfunny, obnoxious and should not have been cast in this role, or the director should have stepped up and said “stop acting like that you fucking idiot. It’s not working!” Since the director didn’t do that, the audience has to sit through continual funny faces, accents and terrible one-liners that aren’t funny at all. Fuck the Cat in the Hat. Fuck the Cat and fuck his hat.
The kids allow the Cat to tear up the house and he brings in Thing One and Thing Two, two fucked up looking things to tear up the house. We get tons of bad CGI and more “characters” from Myers. Oh how funny it was when he played a stoner, a Scottish infomercial salesman, a woman and so forth.
The one bright spot in this terrible film was Alec Baldwin as Mom’s boyfriend, Quinn. You can tell that he knew this shit was bad but he made the most of it and his role could have easily been as bad as Hayes, Preston’s or Myers. Baldwin made lemonade out of lemons and I enjoyed the time he was on screen.
You shouldn’t speak badly about children. At least that’s what they say. I said it because I’ve heard it before, but I have to say something about the movie that might offend those people that live by that “don’t insult kids” thing. Spencer Breslin is a terrible actor and stunk up the film in the role of Conrad. He nearly matched Myers here, but I give him second place because Myers is an adult. I felt bad thinking “annoying fuck” as I watched this and he had to be no more than 12-years-old.
The film continues with the kids learning a lesson about being good and the Cat and his two fucked up short friends cleaning up shit. The bad CGI, acting and writing continues and Dr. Seuss was probably punished in the afterlife for being responsible for this shit.
CAT IN THE HAT is one of the worst films ever made. Myers should be given credit for SHREK and AUSTIN POWERS, but he allowed people around him saying “you’re so funny” to impact him, I think. He was now trying to be funny rather than being funny. He comes off like Sandler and Carvey do in some of their films. This movie is nearly unwatchable.
What’s amazing is that 5 years passed and Myers came back with THE LOVE GURU. He didn’t learn a fucking thing.
Avoid CAT IN THE HAT. It’s obnoxious, unfunny, stupid, annoying and a waste of time. I’m glad they lost money on it. F them. Hard.
