The Cat in the Hat

Mike Myers is a talented guy. Seeing him make a fool of himself in dreck like this is quite the puzzling experience. As the title character, buried under mounds of fur and makeup, he is the single most annoying entity put to screen since Drop Dead Fred. It seems he can’t figure out if he’s the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz, or his character from the SNL skit Coffee Talk. Director Bo Welch fills his film with fart jokes, erection humor and various references to castration, just the sort of thing you’d be looking for in an adaptation of a beloved children’s story. Myers is straining here, and one imagines him running off the set when the director yelled cut and kicking a water cooler. I love the book; loved it when I was a kid; and love reading it to kids today. But I hate this movie and vow to never watch it again.