Le chat chapeauté

You'll be hard pressed to find a more toxic film than Mike Myers' The Cat In The Hat. It's one of the worst reviewed movies of its decade, by critics and audiences alike. Most found its vulgarity and juvenile sense of humor to be offensive, considering the magical and timeless source material. There's no doubt that Mike Myers' Austin Powers brand of humor is an ill fit for the classic Dr. Seuss story, but if you can power through the shock value inherent in The Cat In The Hat, you'll find a fairly entertaining kids romp with a couple of genuine laughs for adults.

The Cat In The Hat shares the same basic outline from the book, with two kids, Sally and Conrad, having a chance encounter with a life-sized Cat played by Mike Myers. The crux of the story is that general hilarity ensues and the kids must clean up before their mother comes home. It's a great story to tell in a children's picture book; There it is charming, innocent, and whimsical. Here, the hilarity is a strange mix of Mike Myers brand humor and standard kid's potty jokes. The kid stuff is dreadfully unfunny, but I can't say that Mike Myers doesn't infuse some kind of welcome energy to the proceedings.

I may sound like I'm giving this film a glowing review; I'm not. The Cat In The Hat spends much more time with flat gags, needless plot points, and baffling music numbers than it does with the moments of real comedy. The story here meanders through every kind of cliché kiddy movie plot point you can think of, and Mike Myers tries his best to annoy even the most optimistic viewers to tears (He relentlessly shouts "Oh Yeah" like an off-brand Kool-Aid Man... Guess what? That catchphrase ain't sticking).

I'm not here to sing the praises of The Cat In The Hat. I'm not even going to defend it, but call me crazy, I laughed during this movie. I really laughed, at more than a few points in the film. Dakota Fanning and Spencer Breslin are cute, and the sets are colorful and inventive. This movie has problems for sure, mainly stemming from the fact that the whimsy of the book has been replaced with mean-spirited, gross-out humor. If you can get past that fact, there is fun to be had here. It all depends on what you're willing to sit through for a couple of good laughs.

60/100

Its a very good thing for my community because i live in russia and my russian fellews really aprreciate the time and effort these people put into making this wonderful movie and i want to give this 10 stars because its so good and underrated people who think otherwise are rubbish as we say in russia cyka bylat.

This is an unique masterpiece like no other! Peak cinema right here!

A great little feel good film for the family, with a little moral tale for the kids.

Bombastic, high fructose attempt to realize on set what was never meant to be more than a bedtime story illustration.

Pretty far removed from the tone of the original book, there is so much padding that the whole thing becomes rather risible. it's all fun in a grotesque way but you have to be in the mood to laugh at the lame CGI gorged jokes as well as with them.

Mike Myers makes a pretty vivid Cat who can be a little annoying and more than a little terrifying.

It's stupid, but sometimes stupid things are bizarrely distracting.