When the set design is a film's best feature, you know you're in deep trouble. This may look like a Dr. Seuss book brought to life, but it doesn't feel like one, apart perhaps from having a plot that can fit into a few pages of big print.
Mike Myers is spectacularly hammy as The Cat In The Hat, the mischievous feline presence who disrupts the purple and pretty house of Sally (Fanning, playing the control freak as usual) and Conrad (Breslin) while their mother is at work.
A few laughs come from Alec Baldwin as Mom's posturing, deceitful boyfriend, but attempts at inserting risqué modern humour sit uneasily with the playfully innocent surrealism of Seuss' famous characters. Young children unfamiliar with the original books may be able to lap up The Cat In The Hat's colourful silliness, but fans of Seuss' work are more likely to be baying for Myers' blood.
