Techtite DVD Reviews

The Film: There's nothing embarrassing --nor damaging to a career-- if a comedian cannot deliver a decent joke in a cat suit. This problem is tripled, when the make-up department has made you look less like a lovable Seuss character, and more like a reject from an off-Broadway Cats revival. Such is the peril Mike Meyers must endure, in this quite unfunny live-action version of Dr. Seuss' classic children's book, The Cat in the Hat.

The story is well known: two kids on a rainy day have nothing to do but sit, sit, sit, when suddenly a cat in a hat comes knocking on their door. Sure, it's debatable to have a children's story where strangers are invited into the house while mom's away, but this is immaterial; the point is that the kids are bored, and along comes a cat who's a totally cool party animal. From his helpers Thing Two and Thing One to his hat of a thousand tricks, this cat had Seuss' most brilliant pieces of whimsy with him, wherever he goes. Oh, and who can forget the tête-à-têtes with the kids' pet fish, who in typical Seuss style, is the biggest voice of reason? Of course, you know this all already, don't you...? This story is a classic.

Much like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, however, the cinematic version suffers from one core flaw: not even the best of Hollywood screenwriters could ever make a feature film out of a children's book. Yes such books can be made into classic TV cartoon specials though can they be spread over 82 minutes? No...not that Hollywood doesn't try. In Grinch's case, a once simple tale about selflessness was force-fed a story arc about prejudice against Grinches. Prejudice...against grinches? Seriously; what was that about?

Similarly Cat in the Hat makes the mistake of allowing Meyers to fill in empty space with any of his many schticks; a good idea, if any of his sticks had ever been G-rated. Meyers really should have been told he is not "Austin Powers" here: Cat's hat grows to attention when seeing a picture of mom, he has pimp-style innuendo with a "hoe," and even spells out explains how his four letter word for his old car began with "S" and ended with "T". Yes, parents, so sorry: this is another Seuss tale made inappropriately into a "PG" film by a myopic, demographic-mad Hollywood. What a crying shame...for parent and child alike.

It is bittersweet that Meyers is given the occasional reprieve via half a dozen new characters. "Mom" is finally given a face (Kelly Preston), plus a job, run by boss Mr. Humberfloob (Sean Hayes). We also meet Mom's boyfriend (Alec Baldwin) and her chosen babysitter (Amy Hill). The boyfriend seems dragged into the story purely for a villain element; an element this children's tale never really needed. The babysitter seems to have been brought in just so the kids can use her narcoleptic body as a floatation device in Cat's water slide ride; a visual gag that isn't half as funny as someone thought it was.

The two kids are as well cast as they are poorly written. It was a smart move by the casting director, to bring in two of the youngest heavyweights in movies these days: Dakota Fanning (Taken) and Spencer Breslin (Disney's The Kid). It's not their fault that their characters have been so badly overwritten, into a female control freak (Fanning) and an apparent bad-boy in training (Breslin). Oh, goody; another modernized feminist tale where little girls carry their own palm pilots and the boys are simpletons. Pardon me as I digress a bit, but I'm getting a little sick and tired of all the retroactive chauvinism in movies and TV lately, where the Bart Simpsons are idiots while the Lisa Simpsons are Presidential timber. Enough.

Making matters worse is this Cat's idea of fun. While he seemed like the host with the most in a 1971, 30-minute cartoon --that's 30 minutes, commercial time included-- he seems to be running on empty here. It's saying something when a comic must resort to the house toilet for a few extra laughs, and even then, there aren't any. The CGI pet fish looks nothing like Finding Nemo; Thing One and Thing Two look less like their formerly pom-pom haired selves, and more like mutant offspring of Marge Simpson. There's even a boring subplot where Cat must drive the kids around town to find their lost dog. This scene is all the more peculiar because it seems so out of place; I don't know what specs the car designers were given, but Cat's car looks less like a piece of Seuss whimsy and more like something from a cheesy 1950's space adventure.

Director Bo Welch is given his premiere directorial job here. As a production designer (sort of like the "middle man" between director and director of photography), Welch helped create some truly brilliant films of the dark-humor variety, including Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. However, it is equally true that Joe Versus the Volcano, Wild Wild West, and Ghostbusters 2 are also part of Welch's very polarized production design résumé. In short; this guy has helped make two cult hits, yes, but he's also helped make some of the biggest mushroom clouds in a long line of big-budget bombs. Will The Cat in the Hat be among them? Even to this diehard Seuss fan, things don't look very good.

The DVD: You know, looking back on this film all I can say is: somewhere, someone is very happy for "Gigli," if just because it put "worst possible film ever" in perspective. This film wasn't that bad; it just wasn't very good. However, it was not very good. That's very clear.

The only reason I say this is because I'm only human, and one cannot blame me for looking at all the extras with my eyes glazing over. Consider the audio commentary, with Alec Baldwin and director Bo Welch. How embarrassing is it for Alec Baldwin, to be in a film as what may as well be a mere cameo role, and be the only actor in the audio commentary? I don't know who to feel more sorry for; Alec for being in the commentary, or Mike Meyers for not being in the commentary. Come on Mike; you already agreed to wear a cat suit. Was an audio comment track that much harder to accept?

When you hear about deleted scenes in a film like this, again your eyes start to glaze over. "16 deleted scenes"...? "20 outtakes"...? All I can say is the film itself was barely worth seeing at all. You can imagine how even one of these deleted scenes is. As for outtakes; if they were funny you'd presume they'd be kept in the film as an improvisation, since the original script wasn't exactly working. I know I'm always listing all the deleted scenes one by one; not here. It's not worth my time. Sorry.

Then there's the "10" featurettes. I don't remember these featurettes telling us all one of the most amusing anecdotes of them all, as I said in a sidebar top-right; when the set for "Seussville, USA" was built, locals complained at how much of an eyesore it was. For this DVD to list such a look at this town as an added bonus feature just shows how naive the film's creators are to this very day. If the locals actually demanded their elected officials ensure that "Seussville" was torn down ASAP, who are we to be pleased to see it as an extra feature...?

Sure, there's a lot of featurettes here. "The Purr-fect Stamp"..."The Real Dr. Seuss"..."Dance-Along with the Cat"..."The Mother of All Messes"..."Music to A Cat's Ears"..."The Dirt on D.I.R.T."...and so on. Let's just say they're all typical features and leave it at that. I wouldn't say that this was a horrid film. It just isn't worth it to review each and every extra in depth. Not even the film itself was worth so much time.

	Final Rating : Near Miss. Any comedian would have a hard enough time delivering a joke in a cat suit without being asked to utter total dreck.
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The Cat in the Hat (2003)

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