THE CAT IN THE HAT

US, 2003, 82 minutes, Colour.
Mike Myers, Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin, Kelly Preston, Alec Baldwin, Amy Hill, Sean Hayes.
Directed by Bo Welch.

Dr Seuss's stories have been popular in book form since the 1930s. When challenged to provide a story that children would read (with a vocabulary of only 200+words), he produced The Cat in the Hat in the late 50s and sold millions of copies.

In 2001, Ron Howard directed Jim Carrey in a version of Dr Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Now we have Mike Myers as an ordinary 6 foot cat who takes Conrad and Sally on a whirlwind day of fun that makes Conrad (Spencer Breslin) realise how awful he is in being cantankerous and Sally (Dakota Fanning) realise how obsessive she is. (When her mother (Kelly Preston) lays down some rules for Conrad, she eagerly cries, "give me some".) The complication is that the next door neighbour Laurence (Alec Baldwin) wants to marry the children's mother. He is charming on the surface but underneath is a slob who wants to send Conrad to military school.

So, in fact, the Cat has a lot to contend with. Set designer turned director, Bo Welch, makes sure that the film looks good, plenty of bright pastel shades in a cardboard cutout town, bright costumes, everything colourful.

The Cat in the Hat is critic-proof. Young children will probably give it 10 out of 10. Parents might (probably will) find Mike Myers rather irritating as the Cat. His performance more than mirrors in voice, attitudes, body language and expressions Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery. Alec Baldwin's villainy is somewhat over the top, agreeable to the mother, disagreeable to the children, threatening the young boy with military school – but, he receives an outlandish comeuppance instead. Kelly Preston is the loving but hard-pressed mother. And Sean Hayes is her boss at work, very demanding, expecting everything to go perfectly for the social at her home that evening.

With the baby sitter who spends most of the time asleep, Conrad gets up to mischief under the disapproving eye of his sister. And then the Cat turns up , promising a mischievous day for the children who fall under his spell, the house becoming an absolute mess – but, the cat able to magically do a kind of Mary Poppins and clean the house instantly so that everything goes well for the party in the boy learns a bit of discipline and responsibility – and his sister some flexibility.

As has been mentioned, probably best for children – and the tolerant parents watching it.