The Cat in the Hat (2003) |
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The Cat in the Hat (2003) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Fantasy |
Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-The Hat Featurette-The Real Dr Seuss Featurette-The S.L.O.W. Featurette-The Kids Featurette-The Cat Stacks Featurette-The Mother Of All Messes Featurette-Dance-Along With The Cat Easter Egg-The Dog In The Hat Featurette-The Cat Featurette-The Fish Featurette-Seussville, USA Featurette-The Music Deleted Scenes Outtakes Audio Commentary-Bo Welch (Director) And Alec Baldwin (Actor) |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2003 | ||
| Running Time | 78:24 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (52:26) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Bo Welch |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Universal Pictures Home Video |
Starring |
Mike Myers Alec Baldwin Kelly Preston Dakota Fanning Spencer Breslin Amy Hill Sean Hayes Danielle Chuchran Taylor Rice Brittany Oaks Talia-Lynn Prairie Dan Castellaneta Victor Brandt |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music |
Greg Camp David Newman Marc Shaiman |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
The Cat in the Hat (2003) is the fun, live action adaptation of the famous children's book by Dr. Seuss, starring the outrageous Mike Myers as the Cat.
As I noted in my review of the animated The Cat In The Hat (1971), reviewed here, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 in Massachusetts. After briefly attending Oxford University, Geisel returned to the US and embarked on a career as a cartoonist. Geisel supported himself by being an advertising artist, and working on marketing campaigns. During World War II, Geisel served with Frank Capra's Signal Corps, making training movies. Having been taught the techniques of animation, Geisel developed a series of animated training films for the US Army.
Following the end of the War, Geisel was contracted to illustrate a children's book. While sales were not encouraging, Geisel was inspired to write and illustrate his own, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The book was rejected 27 times before being published. While not being very successful, in terms of sales, a later book would change Geisel's life . . .
The Cat in the Hat was created when Geisel's publisher asked him to write and illustrate a book with only about 200 "new-reader vocabulary words". Published in 1957, The Cat in the Hat was an outstanding success. Geisel went on to write and illustrate 44 children's books, including Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Fox in Socks, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Translated into many languages, over 200 million copies of Dr. Seuss' books have been sold around the world. Interestingly, despite being the quintessential children's author, Geisel never had any children of his own.
"It's fun to have fun, but you have to know how".
The movie is considerably different to the book, and understandably so. After all, film is a visual medium and a film of this length and scale requires something different than the fun word play, nonsensical poetry, and simple story and characters of the book.
The movie is largely set in the home of two kids, an impulsive rule breaker, Conrad (Spencer Breslin), and his bookish, control freak sister, Sally (Dakota Fanning). Their single mother, Joan (Kelly Preston), is a real estate agent struggling to raise the two kids, while holding down a demanding job. Joan is being courted by their sleazy salesman neighbour, Lawrence (Alec Baldwin), who has secret, greedy plans for his own gain. Joan is hosting the Humberfloob Real Estate Agency's bi-monthly meet and greet party. Her boss, the nasty Mr Humberfloob (Sean Hayes), is obsessed with cleanliness, and has threatened Joan with being fired if her house is messy at the evening's party.
All the preparation at the house for the party seem to be in order until Joan is called back to work. Out of the blue, a mischievous, manipulative, man-sized cat (Mike Myers), invades the kid's home. Ignoring the warnings and wisdom of their goldfish, Krinklebein (a CGI fish voiced by Sean Hayes), the children allow the Cat in the Hat, and his assistants, Thing One (Taylor Rice) and Thing Two (Brittany Oaks) to wreak havoc in their home.
"That top-hatted cat should not be about, should not be about when your mother is out".
Mike Myers performance as the Cat is brilliant. Through the heavy makeup, he still manages to deliver an outrageously hilarious performance as the naughty cat. In this cross-generational comedy, a lot of his cheeky jokes are pitched squarely at the adults (earning the film a PG rating), and I had a good chuckle many times during this film. Furthermore, the production design, art direction, visual effects, and CGI work are all outstanding.
At its heart, this is a nice story about balance. Through the absurd and crazy antics of the cat, the two children discover a better balance in their lives between thoughtless recklessness and too much discipline.
The transfer is a little grainy, but very good overall.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced.
The sharpness, black level, and shadow detail are all good. The beautifully saturated colour is vibrant and excellent. The film makes clever use of themed colour schemes throughout. I also noticed that both the opening and closing credits made use of the original colours from the book. The skin tones are accurate.
A very clean, and recent print has been used, and there are no problem with MPEG, film-to-video, or film artefacts.
Only English subtitles present, and they are accurate. This is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed at 52:26.
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There is only one audio option on this DVD for the feature: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s). There is also an English Audio Commentary, presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s).
The dialogue quality and audio sync are excellent.
The musical score is credited to David Newman, but there are also a number of songs, such as Fun Fun Fun and Clean Up, performed by Mike Myers as the cat. Smashmouth also perform two good tunes, Hang On, and a cover of the Beatles Getting Better, which both suit the film well.
The surround presence and activity are quite good, and the rears are often used to provide both ambience and the score, such as during the rain storm at 21:14. There is also a good LFE track, and the subwoofer supports a lot of the effects, such as the house collapsing at 60:46.
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The extras are designed for children. All extras are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby Digital Stereo audio. However, there is really only one featurette which has been broken up into annoyingly short pieces, each running for about two minutes. They all feature soundbites from pretty much the same people, such as Director Bo Welch, Producer Brian Grazer, and Actor Mike Myers. They each include some behind-the-scenes shots, and a lot of letter-boxed clips from the film. There is also an Easter Egg to be found about the dog in the movie.
A look at the many hats that appear in the film
This should have been a full-length featurette. We get a few stills, and about 30 seconds of Ted Geisel appearing on a television show.
A look at the production design of the cat's car.
A few soundbites from the two kids that star in the film.
Acknowledging that one of the most memorable images from the book was the cat balancing a variety of items, while standing on a ball, we see how the film sought to achieve this.
A look at some of the CGI work and visual effects.
This is an instructional guide to dance like the cat. Eight dance steps are taught, using multi-angles. They are all combined into a simple dance routine at the end.
A discussion of the balance struck between Mike Myers and the image of the cat from the book.
A look at the idealised world created through sketches, models, and sets.
A very quick look at the CGI and animation process that brought the fish to life.
David Newman discusses some of the instrumentation, and there are a few behind-the-scenes shots of the soundtrack being recorded.
Running for about 16 minutes, there are a number of deleted and alternate scenes. None are of any note, except for the extended dance scene featuring Paris Hilton. Grrrrrrrrrr.
Running for about 6 minutes, there are a number of outtakes, which usually involve one of the actors forgetting their lines.
Director Bo Welch, and actor Alec Baldwin provide a screen specific commentary. While Welch is quite informative throughout, Baldwin is brash and abrasive. Baldwin even appears to be annoying Welch, with his constant interruptions and loud-mouthed bravado.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Cat In The Hat has been released on DVD in Region 1.
The Region 4 DVD misses out on:
The Region 1 DVD misses out on:
I would still call it pretty even. The featurettes are only about two or three minutes each, yet we get a superior PAL transfer.
The Cat in the Hat (2003) might upset some Seuss purists, but like The Grinch (2000), it's a fun family movie, inspired by the amazing characters, stories, and artwork of the late Dr Seuss. I understand that Geisel was always against live action versions of his books, hence both these movies appearing after his death, however, with the wonder of CGI and modern visual effects, some of the Seuss magic can be brought to the big screen now, such as Krinklebein, the talking (CGI) goldfish.
The video quality is good.
The audio quality is also good.
There are are few extras aimed at kids.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-535, using S-Video output |
| Display | Grundig Elegance 82-2101 (82cm, 16x9). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Sony STR DE-545 |
| Speakers | Sony SS-V315 x5; Sony SA-WMS315 subwoofer |