Inventively Animated The Cat in the Hat is a Dr. Seuss Adaptation by Way of CliffsNotes
“Cat, hat, In French, chat, chapeau. In Spanish, el gato in a sombrero…”
When I was a kid, I knew all the lyrics to the Cat in the Hat animated special. First aired in 1971, and much like How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Lorax, it would play on television each year during the early 1980s, and I would happily watch it every single time it was on. Voice actor Allan Sherman will always be the voice of Dr. Seuss’s signature embodiment of anarchy and childlike playful carnage as far as I am concerned, his performance a chaotic thing of perpetual beauty. Maybe that makes me a stuck-in-my-ways fuddy-duddy (the kind Theodor Geisel likely would have despised, sad to admit), but I have to learn to be okay with that. Sorry Sam I am, that just how it is. No green eggs and ham for me, I guess.
I do have to give multitalented comedian, writer, director, and actor Bill Hader credit, though, because after watching the new feature-length animated adaptation of The Cat in the Hat from Warner Animation, it’s clear that his love and affection for the character runs deep. He pours his heart and his soul into his performance, infusing his portrayal of the Cat in the Hat with multiple layers of clever, emotional whimsy that fits the storybook icon rather well. Hader’s verbal dexterity is the film’s most winning asset, and thanks almost entirely to him, sitting through this new adventure is far from a chore.
But that doesn’t make it worthwhile. It’s rather strange how bland so much of this adaptation is. The screenplay, credited to directors Erica Rivinoja (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) and Alessandro Carloni (Kung Fu Panda 3), with a screen story written by Caroline Williams, never feels risky and rarely wants to live on the edge. It’s like watching the CliffsNotes version of a Dr. Seuss story. The characters are there, and so are the visuals, and while many of the themes are similar, the execution still feels oddly off.
Not that the little kids in my preview audience seemed to mind. They giggled, chortled, and heartily laughed throughout, and any time I glanced around the theater, it appeared to me that collectively their eyes were glued to the screen. They wanted to see the bad guy get his just deserts, the children the Cat was visiting to become heroes, and the feline protagonist to keep being his silly, unpredictable self, no matter how sizable the obstacle set in front of him turned out to be.
I wish I’d have felt the same. While there’s nothing wrong, per se, with the scenario the filmmakers have come up with, there’s equally not a single thing exceptional about it, either. Basically, Cat in the Hat is sent out to turn the frowns upside down of siblings Gabby (Xochitl Gomez) and Sebastian (Tiago Martinez). Their single mom, Carmen (America Ferrera), has moved them to the big city, and Gabby is extremely unhappy about that. It’s up to the Cat in the Hat to show the children how much their mom loves them while also getting them back in touch with the rambunctious inner chaos agents bursting within both of them, one that is eager to escape and to tackle the world’s biggest mysteries with inventiveness, abandon, and, most of all, imagination.
There’s a big MacGuffin involving a golden timepiece that the trio loses and must find before an unspeakable monster, known only as the “Some-Thing,” gets a hold of it. This leads to the Cat in the Hat taking Gabby and Sebastian literally inside their moving boxes to look through their most personal memories. I do have to admit, that’s a pretty nifty idea. Sebastian’s box is filled with toys, including a playful stuffy with an electrified rainbow horn (“It’s really a tooth!”) known as The Psychic Narwhal (Tituss Burgess). Gabby’s has items related to her previous hometown, including her beloved band uniform and a shiny trumpet, both of which she’s scared to admit she loves now that she’s in the big, bad city and doesn’t want to get labeled as a “Band Nerd.”
It’s mom’s box that I found the best of the bunch. It’s filled with all of the boring tax records, birth certificates, various receipts, and health information parents are forced to lug around with them for the rest of their lives once they have children. But underneath all of that, there is buried treasure. Memories that I won’t spoil here, all of which leave Gabby and Sebastian stunned and awed, and all of which allow events to come to a happy resolution as the trio finds themselves coming face-to-face with the Some-Thing.
As nice as all of this may be, and as ingeniously animated (especially an undersea circus found in Sebastian’s box and also that initial foray into Mom’s carton with its seemingly never-ending sea of boring paperwork, and I did love the rambunctious Things when they inevitably make an appearance), it’s still hard to get past how basic and unadventurous the storytelling is. This is a subdued take on the Cat in the Hat. His exuberance for unparalleled mischief has been significantly muted from both the literary version of the character as well as the 1971 cartoon (and I probably should also include the 2003 Mike Myers live-action version, too, but as that film is close to unwatchable, the less we compare any adaptation — let alone this new one — to it the better). He’s a well-meaning grey cat wearing red bow tie and a tall red and white stripped hat who sometimes goes a little wild with the fireworks, but that sadly sounds far more explosive than it honestly is.
Look, this The Cat in the Hat is perfectly okay. Kids will enjoy themselves. Parents won’t hate it. When everyone watches it at home once it becomes available to stream or is on physical media, I imagine precious few will likely complain. But Dr. Seuss deserves better. So does the Cat in the Hat. I wanted more.
Film Rating: 2½ (out of 4)
