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"That Darn Cat" is a makeover of the Disney film with Haley Mills. This time around, the world is darker, the main character is darker...and the cat is darker.

Christina ("Addams Family," "Sleepy Hollow") Ricci is the main character for our story. She's a psychopathic, Gothic creature with black all around. She moves to a new town, finds a new cat, finds a new mystery, and solves it (I wasn't expecting that). Along the way is Thomas F. Wilson, better known as Biff from "Back to the Future," and Michael McKean--who does a bunch of nothing considering how funny the guy usually is.

"That Darn Cat" fails on a lot of levels. It's watchable, and probably should be seen once on TV, but I wouldn't go out of your way to see it.

Christina Ricci is fine as the title character; but I found that the whole moody, Gothic thing was a bit overdone--whether it was on the script like that or not, it was overbearing. They kept stressing to the audience, "This girl is dark," but I think I got it the first time.

Dean Jones, from the original "That Darn Cat," makes a few cameos in this flick. Whatever happened to him? The last I remember him in a film without being a cameo was "Beethoven"...

Thomas F. Wilson does seem to prove he can act out characters other than Biff, Griff and Buford Tannen, but if I were him I wouldn't quit the day job just yet--a film like this isn't going to get him back in the acting arena.

The film's gags don't exactly work all the time. Sometimes they work a little bit, but on the whole, this film is a pretty big mess that should only be seen on television when nothing good is on.

2/5 stars -

John Ulmer

P.S.--Be on the lookout for cameos galore, including "Cheers" man John Ratzenburger.

They made this movie modern, but they also made it more realistic! I am soooo sick of this "Reality TV" era. People seem to have forgotten that fantasy and exercising the imagination are the original reasons for and the very fabric of entertainment movies. For example, in the original, Patricia Randall and her older sister, Ingrid, were living alone at their house while their parents were traveling in Europe. The character of Ingrid was not even in this movie. Part of the fun of the original was that Ingrid Randall and Zeke Kelso were starting to fall in love. Their parents never called their daughters or anything. In real life, few parents would actually stay away that long at once, and even if they did, they would keep closer tabs on their girls. In the new version, Patricia Randall is an only child and her parents happen to be out of the house or just unaware of what is happening. Who cares whether or not it would happen in real life? That was the original point to making movies like that Darn Cat; so that people would get to see things happen the way that they WANT them to happen, not the way that they actually do happen. Christina Ricci also degraded the precocious but sweet character that Hayley Mills originated. Of course, the decay and crudity of the modern world had to be embedded into this movie that was assumed to be like the original; safe and fun for all ages! It was nice to see Dean Jones in the movie, but that is just about the only positive thing I can think of about this version. On top of everything else, the original version immortalized D.C. as a SIAMESE cat(No other kind of cat should have been used), and the rocky title song of this movie was JUNK! It was not at all worthy to be compared to the soothing, orchestrated title song in the original, written by Richard and Robert Sherman, the composers of music for many other Disney classics (e.g. The Parent Trap, Mary Poppins),and sung beautifully by Bobby Darin. What is wrong with today's producers? Do they not want their children to enjoy the same harmless but fun entertainment that helped make their own childhoods memorable? It is a good thing that the classics are being re-released on video and DVD because right now, the past seems to be the only place to find true family entertainment.

Well, first of all this 1997 re-imagination of the 1965 classic "That Darn Cat" movie is certainly something that will appeal to a younger audience today, for sure.

But that being said, then as a person that have watched and loved the 1965 version, then I have to say that this 1997 version from director Bob Spiers just feels rather unnecessary, especially since the 1965 version is one that actually still can be watched even now in 2021.

This is a family movie, and it does have that traditional Disney feel to it, which is good. And there are lots of nice things about this 1997 version, and it is not a bad movie, quite far from it actually. But the movie just doesn't match the original and why it was re-made, I don't know. And the storyline sort of went a bit too far in terms of mayhem and random destruction of property.

The 1997 version of "That Darn Cat" does have a nice cast ensemble, with the likes of Christina Ricci, Doug E. Doug, George Dzundza, Peter Boyle, Michael McKean, John Ratzenberger, Thomas F. Wilsom and Rebecca Schull. But most interesting and impressive is the fact that Dean Jones actually showed up in this movie, which was quite a nice touch actually.

The cat, Elvis, in the movie is cute, that much is certain. And he does add a lot of charm to the movie.

While this 1997 movie is watchable, it just wasn't a remake that was necessary. My rating of "That Darn Cat" lands on a five out of ten stars.

But I still enjoyed watching her, so I gave it a 3 instead of a 1. Her expressions are priceless. Some of the other cast members (e.g., Michael McKean) are really slumming, too. The cat himself is somewhat amusing. Aside from that, the movie is all cliche, culminating in a much-too-long car chase. (It's also at this point that the movie becomes unnecessarily crude, having been very "family" until then.)

In Boston, Massachusetts, maid Lizzie (Rebecca Koon) is abducted by two bumbling kidnappers after they mistake her for the wife of wealthy businessman Mr. Flint (Dean Jones). In nearby Edgefield, Patti Randall (Christina Ricci) is an asocial outcast who dresses in black and only ever hangs out with her cat D. C. who prowls the neighborhood. When D. C. returns wearing a wristwatch that looks similar to the one Lizzie is shown wearing in the newspaper that has "HEll", scratched into it, Patti becomes convinced D. C. knows where Lizzie and the kidnappers are and the watch is actually saying "Help". While Patti's mother Judy (Bess Armstrong) writes this off as a wild flight of fantasy, Patti undeterred takes the watch to the FBI after scratching the "P" into the wrist watch to be taken more seriously. Initially Patti's story is written off by the Bureau as a joke and they assign Zeke Kelso (Doug E. Doug) to interview her as he's considered a joke despite his father's reputation. Eventually Kelso is convinced that Patti's story may be true and he investigates the lead by tailing D. C.

That Darn Cat is a remake of the 1965 film of the name which was itself adapted from the novel Undercover Cat written by The Gordons who also co-wrote the film adaptation. During the 90s Disney had experienced some success remaking some of their films such as The Incredible Journey with Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and most especially 1996's 101 Dalmatians which despite critical reception being mixed became the 6th highest grossing film of that year. Given the success of animal centric remakes it stands to reason that Disney would remake a few other prior successes bringing us to That Darn Cat written now by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski whose filmography is massively inconsistent with the likes of Ed Wood, The People vs. Larry Flynt, 1408, and Big Eyes, but also duds such as Problem Child 1 and 2, Screwed, and Agent Cody Banks. The movie is directed by Scottish director Bob Spiers who has mainly worked in British TV including Fawlty Towers and Absolutely Fabulous but is more known internationally for helming the critically panned vanity project Spice World at the height of the Spice Girls fame. That Darn Cat takes the original charm of the 1965 film and replaces it with unfiltered annoyance and noise with characters exaggerated to the nth degree and every gag oversold with subtlety of a battering ram.

Unlike the original movie which was established as a howcatchem with Dan and Iggy established as the antagonists early on and both given very threatening performances (especially for a Disney production) this 1997 film reframes itself as a whodunit which in principle isn't a bad move as it gives a different experience from the original, but the movie makes it way too easy to know who the kidnappers are even when they're using the voice synthesizers that don't do a good job masking the distinctive voice of a noted character actor. Unlike the relatively grounded approach taken by the first film where the case was treated very seriously with certain scenes filmed as though they were from an actual police procedural or film-noir, every actor is written and directed to be as over the top, slapstick, and muggy as possible with pretty much no one taking this seriously which is a major point against the comedy because the key thing that made the '65 original funny was the humans were treating all of this with a sense of urgency while deal with an unpredictable cat as their only lead. Christina Ricci does a distilled version of her role from Casper only with her dialogue filled with cynical quips that are unfunny and pretty grating (I don't blame Ricci for this, I blame the writers and directors) and Doug E. Doug is given a very humiliating role as Zeke Kelson who unlike the straight laced agent from the original is now rewritten as a barely competent boob who can't even identify a cherry stem. Most of the supporting cast making up the Edgefield residents are equally grating with the exception of maybe Dean Jones as Flint and Michael McKean as Peter Randall who're the only ones who exhibit any likability in this film. And then there's the cat itself which is nowhere near as impressive as the original cat from the '65 film with the cat never looking all that engaged and when it does re-enact a scene that was done in the '65 film it's noticeably more slipshod with the cat's screentime greatly reduced in comparison to the original film.

That Darn Cat is an awful movie. With its assortment of TV actors chewing scenery, awkward humor, and hackneyed poorly timed slapstick, this remake of That Darn Cat felt less like the era of 60s Disney and more like the dump years of the 70s where Disney was producing dreck like Superdad and Million Dollar Duck. Just watch the original movie and pretend this doesn't exist.