BEFORE: I've got pretty low expectations for this one. But I've got it on my list because I was looking for a film to put on a DVD with "The Lorax", even though no premium channel has run it yet, I want to be ready.
Linking from "Stuart Little 3", Geena Davis was also in "Beetlejuice" with Alec Baldwin (last seen in "Running With Scissors")
THE PLOT: Sally and Conrad are two bored kids whose life is turned up-side-down when a talking cat comes to visit them.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Horton Hears a Who" (Movie #361), "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" (Movie #360)
AFTER: Well, I often say that you can learn more about filmmaking from watching a bad movie than a good one. If that's true, I learned a lot tonight. To say this film is a confusing mess would be an understatement, as well as an insult to confusing messes.
I don't necessarily think a film needs to stick exactly to the plot of a book, but this one veered so wide - the original children's classic by Dr. Seuss had two kids stuck inside on a rainy day, visited by a magic cat who teaches them how to have fun. Here we have two latch-key kids with a terrible babysitter on a SUNNY day, and their one task is to not destroy the house while their mother is at work. Along comes the titular Cat (from where, exactly?) and proceeds to do just that.
Supposedly he's there to teach the two kids separate lessons - the little girl is hyper-organized and bossy to her friends, and needs to learn how to have fun, and the older boy is destructive and needs to learn how to behave. Yes, in the same household we've got OCD and ADHD - how is that possible?
And who better to teach them than a giant Cat who's a mix of Mary Poppins, Beetlejuice and the Ghost of Christmas Jokes-That-Don't-Land? The humor is all stream-of-consciousness, like Robin Williams on a talk show, but slower and not funny. Played as part Jewish, part effeminate and all annoying, Mike Myers (last heard in "Shrek Forever After") might have been shooting for a character like the Genie in "Aladdin", but he missed.
He's there to teach the kids how to have fun. No, wait, he's there to teach them a lesson. He tries to destroy the house, he wants to put the house back together. He wants to cause trouble, he wants to help the kids get out of trouble. There's no internal logic or consistency, and no clear quest or direction. Find the dog, get home, stop Mom's boyfriend, don't wake the babysitter up. Can we please pick a goal and stick with it?
What's worse is the parts that are an attempt at a veiled commentary on modern life - kids are too organized, single moms have to work, hipsters with petitions are annoying. (OK, I'll give you that last one...) But there are no clear suggestions on how to make things better, either, in this candy-colored, overly-stylized, art-decorated look at suburban America.
Last night's film was animated, but perhaps it should have been live-action (with some CGI). This one was live-action, but by all rights should have been animated. It might have been a little easier to swallow, visually that is, and the impossible can seem more feasible with animation. Having cartoony things take place in a live-action world makes everything seem out of place somehow.
This wraps up the children's lit portion, but there are still a few more animated films before I get back to more grown-up fare.
Also starring Dakota Fanning (last seen in "Man On Fire"), Kelly Preston (last seen in "For Love of the Game"), Spencer Breslin, Amy Hill, with cameos from Sean Hayes (last heard in "Igor"), Clint Howard (last seen in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian") and Paris Hilton (last seen in "Zoolander").
RATING: 1 out of 10 cupcakes
You're always filled with confidence when you find out about the star is doing this movie as part of a legal settlement, to get out of having to star in an even dumber movie.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I wasn't aware of that, I'm looking it up now.
DeleteAre you referring to "Sprockets: The Movie"? If it had been done similar to something like "Brüno", it might have been better than this.
Did you know Tim Allen originally wanted to play the Cat in the Hat? He conceived of this film adaptation, but the screenplay took so long that he had to opt out, since he was already committed to making "Santa Clause 2".
I think the most surprising fact here is that someone wrote a screenplay for this - it mostly seems like the actors are making it up as they go along.