THE STORY – As his last chance to prove himself to his incredibly exasperated boss, and to keep his job, the Cat in the Hat is given his toughest assignment as an agent of the I.I.I.I. (Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC): to cheer up siblings Gabby and Sebastian, who are struggling with their move to a new town.
THE CAST – Bill Hader, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, Xochitl Gomez, Giancarlo Esposito & America Ferrera
THE TEAM – Erica Rivinoja & Alessandro Carloni (Directors/Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 107 Minutes
In 1957, the book that would become Dr. Seuss’s defining work was published. Fast forward nearly 70 years to 2026, and the latest big-screen adaptation of the story is opening in theaters. Like the source material, it’s clearly intended for the youngest possible audience members who can sit relatively still in public, besides the expected wiggling and giggling. It’s bewildering, then, that the film takes a 61-page picture book with minimal text and stretches it into a staggering one-hour-and-45-minute runtime. Thankfully, those 107 minutes are packed with decent jokes and colorful animation, but knowing the inherent simplicity of the story it’s based on, “The Cat in the Hat,” it’s bursting at the seams with far too much plot.
This behatted cat is voiced by Bill Hader, giving a performance that vacillates between a loose, goofy energy and shocking sleepiness. At times, it sounds like he recorded his lines lying down, especially in the opening sequence, which is supposed to establish his excessively fun-loving character. Here, we learn that the Cat is an employee of the I.I.I.I. – the Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC – which sends its anthropomorphized animal workforce into the homes of children who need their spirits lifted. (Anyone else reminded of “Monsters, Inc.?”) Back at the office, their performances are graded on two scales: how much fun the kids had and how much mess they left behind. The Cat excels in the former department, but the Mess-O-Meters that assess the latter are typically maxed out whenever he returns from a gig. Tired of dealing with his destructive joviality, the Cat’s boss, Mr. Hoogeboom (gamely voiced by Hollywood’s go-to bad guy, Giancarlo Esposito), allows him one last mission to prove that he can work within the confines of the job’s requirements. But Hoogeboom won’t make it easy, setting up several traps for the Cat, including assigning him a kid who falls into the most dire, seemingly helpless category of unknowing customers.
This child is Gabby (Xochitl Gomez), a preteen girl even gloomier than most kids her age because her mom (the always-warmly-charismatic America Ferrera) has moved her and her younger brother Sebastian (Tiago Martinez) from their beloved home into an apartment building. Distressed and destabilized, Gabby isn’t acting like herself, even going so far as to throw out her beloved trumpet rather than wanting to join her new school’s marching band. In other words, she’s severely in need of cheering up. After Mom goes off to her first day at her new job, leaving her two kids behind, the Cat shows up and sets out to show Gabby that there’s still fun to be had in her new home, and that her life may not be as tragic as she thinks.
If that feels like a lot of exposition, it feels even more overwhelming to watch it (there are several other supporting characters and subplots introduced that I didn’t even mention). It takes about 30 minutes before the Cat and the kids finally set off on the otherworldly adventure that makes up the rest of the film. And the next hour-plus includes a MacGuffin fetch-quest, backstories-upon-backstories that are so busy they require flashback recaps, multiple lessons learned by the main heroine, numerous bits drawn out for way too long, three different villains, and dozens of Things (the film greatly expands the number of little blue-haired guys beyond the typical two, in a blatant attempt from the studio to make their own Minions). Obviously adapting a picture book to a feature film requires expansion and additions, but damn! Even the cursed Michael Myers-starring live-action adaptation was a mere 82 minutes long, or a full 25 minutes shorter than this animated version. Much like the destruction caused by the titular feline, the overstuffed story is formidable.
Thankfully, the movie stays buoyantly entertaining throughout, with jokes and set pieces that occasionally earn a laugh from the adults in the audience. One sequence involving a fish’s circus act is practically daring in how it subverts expectations of comedic timing, and it’s genuinely hilarious. But like nearly everything else about the film, some bits run on far too long, like the slapstick-heavy scenes centered around the Things.
While it doesn’t try to replicate the look of the book’s original illustrations, the movie has a defined artistic style that shifts with its environments. Whenever we’re in the real world that Gabby calls home, the designs and animation vocabulary are decidedly more grounded and staid. But in the Cat’s realm of imagination, the entire film takes on a more cartoonish approach, both in the designs and the actual style of how the characters move and interact. It’s a smart choice that cues the audience into how they should feel and serves as handy visual shorthand to help center them. Lorne Balfe’s jazzy, brassy musical score soars in these sequences, adding an additional element of wonder to the film.
While Hader’s central voice performance is as variable in quality as a feline’s moods, every other actor who stepped into the film’s recording studio has turned in excellent work. In particular, Xochitl Gomez and Tiago Martinez are both excellent as the main brother and sister. Gomez’s Gabby is appropriately moody, and Martinez’s Sebastian has all the energy one expects of a young boy, but neither is exhausting or one-note in their characterizations. Matt Berry is also hilariously dry (although his character is not) as Waffles, the suddenly able-to-speak family fish.
But while the animators and voice actors deliver, it can’t be emphasized enough just how overcrowded the story is. It feels wrong that anyone bringing their kids to see a film adaptation of a picture book should expect to be in the theater for over two hours, including trailers. And it’s not just the length that’s too much; the story is just too dense. There’s fun to be found in “The Cat in the Hat,” but for a similarly good experience in a fraction of the time, stick to the book.
