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 Dr.
Seuss' Cat in the Hat
Starring: Mike Myers, Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin,
Alec Baldwin and Sean Hayes
Directed by: Bo Welch
Rated: PG
Cat
in the Hat is
delightfully different and wildly off for a Dr. Seuss film. It's
the wackiest adaptation I think I've ever seen! Who's it
for? Not the little ones that's for sure. The crowd murmured and
squirmed, while frankly, some looked like they swallowed a worm!
Be
warned ye that thoughtith Universal's Grinch
film stepped over the line - skip this or you may need therapy.
But for the Addams Family - Beetlejuice - Monkey Bone loving lot
of you? RUN to this spectacular outrageously brave kaleidoscopic
colorburstating mindtripilous film! Director
Bo Welch, right or wrong, wields this film like a Tim Burton excursion.
Hey, the kids have goody two-shoes Nemo to play with now! Hehe.
Myers is marvelous as the seriously sinister modern day cat that
comes complete with lawyers and a thousand page contract for his
day of less than cordial recipes for fun! It's a small audience
that will embrace this for the off beat sketch it is; after all
Seuss is an institution one dare not reinterpret...not even in
these chronic reality-based-single-parent-MTV-addicted-sex smart-at-twelve-electronic-snorffing
days we dwell in I suppose...
This
tale goes... Joan Walden (Kelly Preston) has a very important
house party to throw for her boss' (Sean Hayes) real estate company.
But her son (Spencer Breslin) is one of those attention deficit
kids that insists that mayhem and destruction be high on his daily
planner. Her charming, if anal retentive daughter (Dakota Fanning),
tries to maintain - complete - control but he's quite a handful...
That
is until a mysterious six foot cat (Mike Myers) - in a hat - shows
up to teach the kids a thingamabob or two about how to have funaroo.
He checks them out with his "Phunometer" and as he suspected
one is a brat and one is just flat. With the help of his big red
crate of surprises, Thing One and Thing Two enter the home and
the real trouble ensues.
The
whole while the "handsome" neighbor Larry (Alec Baldwin),
who is hot for the mother and secretly a creepaziod squared real-life
kids would need professional help over in their later years, spies
and connives against the kids while working a way into the home
for his own notorious schemes.
But the cat's got their backs...
Mike
Myers is great purr usual. His accents and mannerism are
as bizarre as ever, his timing spectacularly clever. The comments
that leak outta the "cat" and the over- the-top side-snide
remarks directed directly at the over eighteen crowd will have
your childish side sidesplitting aloud!
Alec
Baldwin is spewing and oozing a rare charm mixed with smarm, his
bad guy maniacally delivering its harm. And the talented kids
are great little props for the cat's fantastically fiendish feats.
If
you look real close there's tons of just blatantly weird unfitting
oddly engaging pieces - like a solitary elderly man adrift in
the town's busy square holding a white Persian cat gazing longingly
into space? Or the sudden "escape" the kids and the
cat make into some underground - and unexplained - rave club??
Or an adorable Clint
Howard making his mandatory Grazer cameo as Kate the caterer
??? Whhhaaaatttt? Hehehe. I looked at the kids around me
and they had these confused little faces while the adults with
them could hardly sit in their places.
Bluntly
speaking? There's nothing from the original tale except of course
Thing One and Thing Two, the Cat in his hat and the Fish...then
it's an all out mind-blowing adventure trip for adults that refuse
to grow up. This is so not what you expect... It's a hilarious
naughty-ish thoroughly acidtrip-like interpretation of Dr. Seuss.
Can't wait to see what Welch does next with his wonderpendappylicious
maze of a brain. Enjoy!
Snack
recommendation: KupKakes and urine-free tacos...
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