I heard the horror stores of how awful this film was, but I never got around to subjecting myself to sitting through it. It's on some local TV station right now, and wow - this has to be one of the most fucked up, bizarre, and blatantly stupid films I've ever seen. And I really like Weekend at Bernie's II!

How could anybody think this film would've been a good idea? Sure we got Mike Myers and Alec Baldwin, and I love adult humor, but overall this film is seriously awful. Ron Howard's 'The Grinch' is a Best Picture contender compared to this.

Has anyone else ever watched it?

I saw it a while back, and thought it was shit. The Grinch kills this.

I couldn't even watch a trailer for this without wanting to vomit. Badness. A vomit on the memory of Dr. Seuss if you ask me.

I think I've only seen the cover art for the DVD. That's as close as I'll get to this thing.

My 5 year old girl loves this movie.

It's easily one of the Ten Worst Movies I've ever paid to see in a theater. It's unbelievably, unbearably awful in ways that cannot even be documented.

And to think Bo Welch hasn't directed another film since...

I never subjected myself to it, but I remember hearing at the time it came out that it had a cameo from Paris Hilton, and it was right then and there that I decided I never wanted to see the film.

Here's a hint: If you're going to make a family film, make one with some intelligence and thought. Putting Paris Hilton in there is smacking all of the good family movies square in the jaw!

To this day, I'm still glad I never saw it! But to those others who have, I feel your pain.

I couldn't finish it. I got about an hour in (with commercials so I guess it was like 40 mins of the movie) and turned it off. I don't even know how to describe what I saw. Truly a remarkable movie since I've never seen a film that's left me speechless.

lol I never knew such a movie was made lol

Must find clips..hell I want to see it now. I need a good laugh, or a good cry.

These clips don't do the film any justice. If you want to see one of the worst abominations in the history of cinema, you'll need to rent it.

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I really don't think this movie is that bad. People tend to dislike one thing about a movie and extrapolate it to all parts of the movie; I have a hard time you were all literally squirming in your seats every second the movie was on. Maybe it's just because I've seen movies like "Manos" without the MST3K commentary, and things like that are what I always equate with a really interminable experience: movies that just don't make any sense whatsoever, with poor editing, abysmal acting, no visible direction, etc., etc. -- like a horrible YouTube sketch stretched to feature length.

In any case, completely unrelated to the rest of the movie, I think this is one of the most visually stunning movies ever made. The production design (not surprising, as it was directed by a production designer) really creates a complete universe, and you don't feel the seams at the edges or anything. The Grinch looked nice, but The Cat in the Hat is really eye-popping. The cinemtography probably adds to it.

I'd agree with you droidguy, but there's no redeeming values about this film. Even the visuals don't save one of the worst scripts possibly ever written. It's just a jumbled mess.

Oh please. This movie wasn't even "So Bad It's GOOD" Bad. It was absolutely horrendous. Horrible script, zero laughs, embarrassing acting, and (this really frosted my craw) Thing #1 and #2 were freakishly hideous and disturbing where they were supposed to be mischievous and endearing.

Yeah great set design, sure... but horrible, HORRIBLE movie. You can watch Manos, Plan 9, even Parts: The Clonus Horror and laugh your mothereffin tukhas off due to the sheer ineptitude and stupidity of all parts involved. But this was a $100million motion picture produced by Imagine Entertainment starring Mike Myers. A colossal misfire of epic proportions.

This movie was awful. It did look nice, but the rest of it was just atrocious. I also can't watch Mike Myers in anything anymore without seeing Austin Powers.

He's only done two things since Austin Powers - one being The Cat in the Hat and the other being contender for one of the worst films of all-time, The Love Guru.

So I think everyone else probably sees him the same way.

My 6 year old is petrified of this movie. Yet, for some reason, he always wants to watch it.

It was on TV this afternoon in the Atlanta area, I think on the CW.

I only saw a few minutes of it, and they were eye-popping, but I can't judge the whole movie, but I did see the Grinch, and that was God-awful in so many ways. I think if these films weren't associated with the work of Dr. Seuss, who had complete mastery and control over every visual and verbal effect he put into his books, and who seemed always to have perfect taste and a sensibility of intelligent restraint, that they wouldn't be so reviled. Because neither of those movies is intelligent or restrained or controlled or masterly or tasteful (Grinch first hand knowledge, Cat by reputation, with maybe an exception for cinematography and production design) and as such seem a rude insult to the loving memory of millions for the man.

There is at least one perfect adaption of Dr. Suess's work on film, and that is the Chuck Jones version of the Grinch (with wonderfully realized collaboration from Boris Karloff, June Foray, Thurl Ravenscroft, Albert Hague, Eugene Poddany, and others). There are others that I haven't seen, but I can't imagine they are as bad as Howard's Grinch, and I suspect Welch's Cat is probably worse.

There's also the Shrek series if that counts, which is getting yet another installment next year.

But, I suspect they were included in what he won't watch.

I remember being a projectionist at a movie theater and having to tear this film down after its relatively short run at the movie theater. While tearing the film back down to its individual reels I went a little fast with the think that turns the film back onto the reel and the film got quite a bit fucked up.
It was going to another theater that night to be played at a 2nd run house so if at least 1 minute of this film was ruined on celluloid I feel i did some good n this world.
This just looked embarrassingly awful.

This isn't what I was saying, FYI. I never claimed anything other than the production design was any good. I was just saying that I have a hard time believing people who say they hated every second of most movies because as far as I'm concerned, it rarely reaches a level of tedium that comes with watching a movie that's truly inept on even technical levels. I can't wrap my mind around the idea that someone hated the dialogue of the film so much that they'd rather watch the endless opening driving footage from "Manos", in which nothing whatsoever is happening.

I'd have to say they are different kinds of "bad".

One is terrible because of low-budget and director's inability to make a movie.

One had a good budget, which should have given it access to capable writers & a half-way decent director, but didn't.

Bo Welch never directed a movie previous, only acted as Production Designer (mostly doing work on some Burton and Sonnenfeld films).

The writing staff (Berg, Mandel & Schaffer) had tons of television writing experience (Seinfeld and Clerks: The Animated Series), but at that point, no (produced) feature film experience.

Hmmmmm.

I will admit though, I do like Berg, Mandel & Schaffer's output (i.e. EuroTrip); but it boggles my mind why they were chosen to write it.

Truly horrible, and it's twisting the knife to have kids who like it

I've watched this 'in the background' a handful of times with my niece.

My problem is that the two kids were devils. And the overall tone is very vile and hateful. Even at the end of the movie, they're still devils. It's like the writers wrote in their opinion that all children are obnoxious and incapable. And the grownups the same.

I like the design. It's like an exagerated, overdone version of The Grinch (which I also dislike). It's like what Casino is to Goodfellas.

Understood but you got to take things as they *are*, not as they are in comparison to anything else. A movie stands or falls on its own.

In the case of "The Cat In The Hat", it is singularly one of the most unpleasant movie-watching experiences of my life (and as a fan and as a reviewer, that's run the gamut of thousands of films from the lowliest of crap to the artiest of fartsy). It literally has no redeeming values. The acting is abominable, the script is embarassing, it is edited in a multiple-migraine-inducing fashion, and yes, the set design and special effects (as far as I remember them, anyhow, after seeing this movie in theaters in 2003 I have stayed far, far away from it since) are loud, overblown, incoherent, and nauseating. And the movie is EXTREMELY boring; it failed to engage the audience on *any* conceivable level. It wasn't funny. It wasn't amusing. It was kind of creepy and disturbing and not in the tingly, visceral way, but in a manner that causes embarassment for all involved. The "jokes" -- if you can call them that -- are forced, flat, and D.O.A. The gags are juvenile and lack the poetic anarchy of Seuss's wordsmanship. The direction is non existent; Welch couldn't stage a scene or understand narrative flow if it bit him on the ass. And on and on and on...

There are too many films in which I couldn't find a single redeeming quality. "The Cat In The Hat" is definitely one of them. It's actually WORSE than "Manos" because "Manos" is a no-budget, no-talent, no-expectation crapfest. "The Cat In The Hat", on the other hand, had $100million behind it, a host of Hollywood A-talent in front of and behind the screen, and it carried the expectation that one of the most beloved childhood stories would be successfully translated to the big screen. It not only failed, it failed on every conceivable level imaginable.

Shit, I'd rather watch "Manos" any day of the week, if I had to choose.