November 21, 2003 | Perhaps the most
remarkable aspect of the Dr.
Seuss' The Cat in the Hat , a surreally rambunctious farce inspired
by the popular children's book, is something that doesn't happen:
Mike Myers, a merrily manic comic actor with a penchant for chewing
up scenery, isn't himself chewed up by the spectacular sets and special
effects in this garishly overproduced yet sporadically inspired romp.
That's no mean feat, considering the amount of high-calorie eye-candy
on display. First-time director Bo Welch informs the production with
his singular experiences as an Oscar-nominated production designer, often
echoing images he originally created for Tim Burton ( Beetlejuice,
Edward Scissorhands ) and Barry Sonnenfeld ( Men in Black ).
With a little help from a vast army of behind-the-scenes talents, Welch
vividly re-imagines the original Seussian storybook setting as a widescreen
wonderland of pastel-colored suburbs, theme-parkish Main Streets and
overall retro-futurism.
The human characters are coiffured and costumed
with just the right amount of cartoonish stylization – and, better still, are performed accordingly
by game supporting players – while the hyperactivity that abounds as
the plot proceeds is aptly pitched at the level of ever-increasing anarchy.
Even a disappointingly familiar mini-apocalypse that threatens to overwhelm
the final scenes has a tongue-in-cheeky touch of candy-coated Hieronymus
Bosch.
But none of this would seem nearly so witty without the kitty.
As the sassy, brassy tabby in the stovepipe chapeau, Myers is a meowing
and wowing wonder, the most fabulously funny feline to frisk and frolic
in a live-action movie since The Cowardly Lion joined Dorothy on the
yellow brick road. It helps, of course, that his performance is enhanced
with high-tech accoutrements (flexible black-and-white fur-suit, computer-controlled
tail, etc.) and CGI tweaking. But it helps even more that Myers is, well,
Myers.
Even while disciplined by practicalities – in an F/X-heavy fantasy,
you have to hit your marks precisely, and hold your positions interminably,
while the movie magic erupts all around you – Meyers finds ample wriggle-room
for improvised riffing. He pounces on every opportunity for wink-wink,
nudge-nudge pop-culture references. (Note the smirky joy he takes in
alluding to product placements and soundtrack sales.) And his capacity
for mimicry is indefatigable. At various points in this fast-and-furious
farce, he appears to channel Nathan Lane, Bugs Bunny, Burt Lahr (in his Wizard
of Oz mode, of course) and a couple of Meyers' own comic characters,
the impish Dr. Evil of the Austin Powers movies and the coffee-klatching
Linda Richmond of Saturday Night Live . Better still, he's so
naughty-boy appealing that he's able to get away with some mildly risqué humor
that might otherwise seem, in a family-movie context, borderline-offensive.
Screenwriters Alec Berg, David Mandel and
Jeff Schafer do a serviceable job of expanding Dr. Seuss' 1,620-word
storybook into a feature-length plot. (But just barely – the movie
clocks in under 80 minutes, plus extended closing credits.) As in the
original scenario, school-age siblings Sally (Dakota Fanning) and Conrad
(Spencer Breslin) are left at home on a rainy day by a busy mom (Kelly
Preston) who warns them not to muss the living room during her absence.
The movie complicates matters a bit: On screen, Mom (Kelly Preston)
is a single parent with a demanding boss (Sean Hayes) and a smarmy
suitor (an almost too-effective Alec Baldwin), while Sally is a budding
control freak and Conrad is a rebellious rule-breaker.
But don't worry: The Cat himself remains
the ultimate Bad Influence, a wild and crazy kitty who unleashes chaos – and, while doing so, turns
the family home into a mass of splattered rubble – even as he delivers
the same moral Dr. Seuss stealthily planted in the verse of his beloved
book. It's worth noting, however, that something gets lost in the translation:
While the book ultimately cautions against having too much fun,
the movie comes down firmly on the side of liberating bedlam, which winds
up making its final warning about undisciplined revelry seem half-hearted
at best. It's almost as though the filmmakers felt duty-bound to deliver
a “responsible” message – “Don't try this at home, kids!” – only because
they were, at heart, fraidy cats.