
Conrad and Sally Walden (Spencer Breslin and Dakota Fanning) are home alone with their pet fish. It is raining outside, and there is nothing to do. Until The Cat in the Hat ('Mike Myers') walks in the front door. He introduces them to their imagination, and at first it's all fun and games, until things get out of hand, and The Cat must go, go, go, before their mother gets back, but their pompous neighbor has bigger plans for them.... (Full plot summary below)
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Conrad and Sally Walden (Spencer Breslin and Dakota Fanning) are home alone with their pet fish. It is raining outside, and there is nothing to do. Until The Cat in the Hat ('Mike Myers') walks in the front door. He introduces them to their imagination, and at first it's all fun and games, until things get out of hand, and The Cat must go, go, go, before their mother gets back, but their pompous neighbor has bigger plans for them.
Leave your thoughts about The Cat in the Hat.
| Washington PostStephen HunterSo good it breaks your heart for not being better. It is kept from brilliance by a soggy climax and a clumsy central narrative device. |
| Portland OregonianShawn LevyMyers' Cat, with a voice that crosses Bert Lahr's Cowardly Lion with Mel Blanc's Bugs Bunny, is generally fun, possessed of an anarchic playfulness that balances his sometimes bawdy tendencies. |
| VarietyTodd McCarthyAttractively designed, energetically performed and, above all, blessedly concise, this adaptation of one of the most popular American kids' books of all time walks the safe side of surrealism with its fur-flying shenanigans. The younger the viewers, the better reactions are bound to be. |
| USA TodayClaudia PuigLong on visual dazzle but short on warmth, and the humor is excessively raunchy for a family film. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertIt's another overwrought clunker like "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," all effects and stunts and CGI and prosthetics, with no room for lightness and joy. |
| ReelViewsJames BerardinelliIt's moderately engaging for the first half-hour, somewhat trying during the second half hour, and virtually unbearable over the final twenty minutes. It's a marginally recommendable film for kids, but not necessarily for parents. |
| The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttEmerges as a lackluster and nearly charmless affair. |
| L.A. WeeklyElla TaylorMyers is the movie's fatal flaw, squeezing out the other characters who fatten the plot, mostly with an eye to parents. |
| Film ThreatKevin CarrLeft me feeling empty inside. There’s no warmth and character from the original Dr. Seuss book, and there’s no substance or soul in the story elements. |
| EmpireAnna SmithA few laughs come from Alec Baldwin as Mom’s posturing, deceitful boyfriend, but attempts at inserting risqué modern humour sit uneasily with the playfully innocent surrealism of Seuss’ famous characters. |