The Cat in the Hat Grinches the Grinch.

Well my movie theater finally opened again after more then two years of being shut down. So I went to see a movie for the first time in 2 years without having to travel for an hour and half to the big city. The theater hasn’t change much in the two years, it smells, your feet get stuck to the floor, and the chair springs constantly poke into your behind. (Sobs) Damn I missed that place. Any way’s I decided to watch the cat and the hat because I have my own reasons for wanting to watch it, mainly because of work reasons.

Well in case you have never heard of the Cat in the Hat it was a book released by Dr.Seuss in the 50’s. It had only 200 or so words in it, and it completely destroyed books featuring Tom, Sally and Spot running. Unfortunately 2 years ago they started putting his books into feature length movies. The problem you probably had to double them just to get a 20 minute short. Since people want a feature length you need to add a lot of stuff into it. They did this in the Grinch and completely ruin it, so how did they do in the Cat and the Hat. The good news is that the Cat in the Hat is 10 times better then the grinch, the bad news that’s not saying much.

Story.
Conrad (the name of the boy in the movie since the books never mention a name) and his sister Sally are stuck at home for the day. There baby sitter a narcloeptic Asian women is asleep on the couch. To make matters worse there mom is throwing a party for her boss who is an absolute germ abphob, if there house isn’t spotless she’s fired. That’s not mentioning there plotting next door neighbor who plans to send Conrad away to military school so he can woe her uninterrupted my him.

Of course there day changes when they find a six foot tall talking Cat and the Hat has suddenly appeared in there house. After a few pointless scenes of scaring each other, which only a few gags where actually laughable. It get’s down to the antics. The cat destroys the place like in the book, adding a few more fart jokes to the mix of the children literature. But when Conrad opens the lock on the Thing’s 1 and 2 box there off on a chase to get the magic lock back before there neighbor can.

What’s good with the movie.
The good news is Mike Mayers does a better job has the cat in the hat then Jim Carry did has the Grinch. The problem with Carry has the grinch is that Carry had to control some of his jokes to make it for the little tikes, and this made him seem a bit like a 5 year old on a sugar high being forced to sit still for a long time. This doesn’t happen with Mayers he comes across has the cat a lot more comfortably, and this does add a bit more fun to the movie. Another thing I should also add the 2 children Conrad and Sally can actually act a lot better then little Cindy Loo from the Grinch, while there not great they at least didn’t make me want to reach for a barf bag because of there bad acting skills.

The sets are another plus for this movie do. While the Grinch had some ugly sets and went to Dr.Seuss to be believable. People with bad make up job for funny noses, and funny squiggly odd size buildings, pencils, and everything else. The Cat and Hat doesn’t employ any of that. The people still look like people and the houses still look normal. Except everything has gone a bit more Leave it to Beaver in looks, the color is bright and the houses and people sit in a row almost perfectly. But this is more believable and gets you into the movie more then the ugly sets of the Grinch.

I should also note there where a lot of jokes that did actually make me laugh, but not nearly has many has they where trying for.

What’s Bad with the movie.
Ok first off like the Grinch there are a bit of adult humor that makes it way into the Seuss classic. There are fart jokes, and the cat calls the garden hoe, a dirty hoe. Not exactly at the age range for the youngsters who should be reading a cat and the hat. Also they try to introduce the cat has; how should I define this, an alien. An alien from another dimension, with a set of lawyers with contracts that just appear out of the wood work. The problem is they never do say why the Cat is hear, and why he decided to choose Sally and Conrad to turn there lives around. At the beginning of the movie Conrad is a Bart Simpson trouble maker, and Sally is an uptight control freak (yes people these characters are Simpsons rejects mark that has another strike against this movie). This is explain by the cat at the end of the movie, but it’s not made clear why he would travel to earth to help these two kids out, my destroying there lives is behond me.

Final Recommendation.
The Grinch was an over hyped hideous toxic waste dump of a movie. The Cat in the Hat is more like a less hype garden verity land fill of a movie. It still has it’s fun moments and a lot of funny laughs but I have to recommend parents watch the movie first before taking there little ones to see it. Which means you’ll be spending twice the money to see this average movie. But I still have to give it a yes recommendation, why? Because so many heavily recommend the toxic waste dump called the Grinch there has to be some way of balancing it out. Bleeah