2003 worst movie ever candidateRating: 1/20
Plot: It's pretty close to what happens in the book as far as I remember, at least for the first half. The biggest difference is that this is complete ass.
This is an hour and a half of complete unpleasantness and in my humble opinion one of the worst movies ever made. If Alec Baldwin, a guy I like, wasn't in this, I'd go ahead and say that everybody involved in the production of this should be executed. Slowly. I'm not a violent man at all and rarely have violent thoughts, but I'd be glad to pull the trigger, yank the switch, jab the instrument, toss the match, or whatever else it takes to do my part in keeping people like this from ever working again. I've recently seen Shrek about two dozen times, and I think I figured out what's wrong with the movie. I can hear Mike Myers in Shrek's voice, and Mike Myers makes me think of this atrocity and I want everybody to die.
This is the second time I've seen The Cat in the Hat. Siskel wanted to watch it because he's got a thing for Kelly Preston, an actress I want dead. And the beginning made me wonder if I was wrong about this movie. It's a nifty colorful start, a cool little Seussian world, albeit one with one of the worst narrators I've ever heard. But within seconds, the whole thing is excruciatingly painful, a headache-inducing affair that offends the ears, the eyes, and somehow even the taste buds. And any reasonable adult's sensibilities, of course. It's equal parts offensive and obnoxious. The warning signs are all there, and if Gene wasn't there and if a tent wasn't pitched in my trousers following one of the sexiest scenes in the history of cinema involving the aforementioned Preston (my new sexual fantasy: Kelly Preston vacuuming me), I would have shut this thing off and tried my best to forget that it existed. It's similar to what I wish I could do with the Holocaust actually. But those warning signs: 1) Uh oh. Children. Bad acting ones at that. One's Dakota Fanning and the other is Spencer Breslin if you want to make some kind of hit list yourself. 2) Uh oh. A dog with too much personality. It's the lazy filmmaker's way of going for cuteness. 3) Uh oh. Go ahead and double up on that animals-with-personality thing with a talking CGI fish voiced by Sean Hayes who also plays the boss and has the annoying catchphrase "You're fiiiiiirrrrrrred-duh!" and who I would like to be dead.
The soundtrack is relentless. David Newman--the guy you get when you can't afford Randy, I'm guessing--has a score-composing philosophy: every single thing that appears on the screen needs to be punctuated with music. The music is constant, highlighting the crap.
Not bad enough? Well, let's add a little cultural stereotyping. Actually, no. Let's add a ton of cultural stereotypes. And speaking of cultural stereotypes, why does the titular cat sound like an old Jewish woman through the movie? That's when he's not imitating the Kool-aide man with the big catchphrase from the film, the one that was supposed to sell Burger King kid meals or put asses in the theater seats--"Oh yeah!" C'mon, writers. Is that the best you can do? Oh yeah? Of course that beats the babysitter pun (something a three-year-old could have come up with--"She sits on babies?") or the "Oh my cod!" line or the hilarious "dirty ho" gag. Oh yeah! All while the cat uses more props than "comedian" Carrot Top. Only Carrot Top is funnier, and that's a sentence I never ever thought I would write. And just when you think the movie can't get any more annoying, they surprise you by throwing in Thing 1 and Thing 2. You know, cause the movie wasn't nearly loud enough before.
You want references to the penis or testicles, farts and belching used for laughs, urine gags, thinly-veiled allusions to sex, or characters on more than one occasion saying "Son of a _____"? This is the movie for you. You can watch this trash with your kid and then wonder why all your kid's teachers hate his guts.
There's a scene in this movie where the cat is hanging from a tree and kids are hitting him because they think he's a pinata. I don't remember for sure, but I'd guess they hit him right in the nutsack because that's the type of thing Dr. Seuss would have thought was hilarious. I wish there would have been some kind of Brandon Lee-type mishap where Mike Myers was beaten to death during the filming of that scene. It would have been a worthy punishment.
This is the worst Dr. Seuss adaptation, and that is saying quite a bit. It's not only that, it's an absolute insult to the writer. Why spend this much money making something that made me want to gouge out my eyes? Wouldn't it have been a lot cheaper just to drive to Dr. Seuss's grave and urinate on it?
And Alec Baldwin? What are you doing? Nice suit, by the way.
This is, quite simply, an ugly awful mess. I love BAD movies, movies that are so bad they are entertaining in ways the producers of the film never intended.
ReplyDeleteThis movie is vile and pointless. It has zero redeeming qualities, even those like unintentional humor or quirky fun.
I agree with your rating, and with your sentiments regarding this movie.
By the way,Mike Meyers is the most self-conscious performer ever on screen. He actually mugs for the camera during movies, and creates pauses for himself to allow the audience to laugh. He has always bothered me as an actor, because the only time I have ever believed him in a live action role is as Wayne, in Waynes World. And even then, Dana Carvey was light years better.
Why did you watch this?
ReplyDelete0/20