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| The Cat in the Hat DVD Review |
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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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The Cat in the Hat
(Universal Studios Home Entertainment)
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| DVD Release Date:
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March 16, 2004
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| Length:
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82 mins.
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| Rated:
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PG
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| Format:
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Widescreen (1.85:1)
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| Audio:
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English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
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| Subtitles:
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Spanish, French Subtitles, English Closed Captioned
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| Extras:
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Feature Audio Commentary with Actor Alec Baldwin and Director Bo Welch, Deleted Scenes, Outtakes, Featurettes (The Hat, The Real Dr. Seuss, The S.L.O.W., The Kids, The Cat Stacks, The Mother of All Messes, The Dirt on D.I.R.T., Seussville U.S.A., The Purrrr-fect Stamp, The Cat and The Fish), Dance-Along with The Cat Feature
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The Cat in the Hat is one of those books that I love reading to my children. But, no matter how many times I've read it, I still get a little tongue tied. I'd love to be able to get through it once without messing up. I guess it really doesn't matter - the kids still love when I read it. Last year, I had the chance to review the DVD release of the television cartoon version of "The Cat in the Hat"
(read the review
here). The kids loved that version, despite the fact that it was nothing like the book. And one day, I hope to show the kids the new live-action movie. They are only 2 and 3 years old, and to be honest, I'm a bit worried about letting them watch. My kids don't watch a lot of TV. It's not that I don't want them to watch - it's more that I don't think they'd be ready for it.
In The Cat in the Hat, the movie starts out sorta like the book. The kids, Conrad and Sally (Spencer Breslin and Dakota Fanning) are stuck in the house with nothing to do when their mother (Kelly Preston) has to go out. Along comes The Cat and their world gets turned upside down. The movie just goes into a bit more. They add the fact that the mother has a career that is taking her away from the house. They add a
babysitter who sleeps through the whole "Cat" incident. They add the meddling neighbor (Alec Baldwin) who wants to make the moves on the kids' mother and they give the story, well, more of a story. Conrad is a troubled child and Sally has obsessive compulsive tendencies. As you can see, it's not really toddler material. And herein lies the problem for this movie.
I didn't have a problem with this movie. I watch a lot of kids movies - sure they're mostly animated, but I watch a lot. So, I'm used to taking it in through the eyes of my children. So, it doesn't really bother me. Sure, it's not awards material, but this movie isn't made for the awards - it's made for the kids. And, being a kids movie, it was a relative success. It earned $100 million - that's considered the benchmark for a successful film. So what's wrong with that? Enough kids liked it to help it reach that plateau. But too
many adults just don't seem to get it. The movie was trashed by pretty much anyone over the age of 15. Gimme a break. It's geared towards a specific audience - and it reached that audience to the tune of $100 million. That's no fluke.
All that being said, there's something that bothers me about this DVD. It's a kids movie. Adults clearly didn't get it. So why on earth are 99% of the special features included here geared towards adults? It baffles me. Why bother. If you're going to make a kids movie, at least have the smarts to offer the kids some features they might enjoy. I'll go over the features now...
First up, I gotta mention the menu screens. If anything, they're the only thing I could see the kids enjoying. Conrad and Sally help guide us through the DVD and are pretty funny when you don't select something right away. If you select Conrad, you get a number of choices. First up there's "The Hat" which is a brief look at The Cat's many different hats. Next up - "The Real Dr. Seuss". I though this would be something more. I though I'd get a better look at Theodore Geisel. Instead, it's a very brief look at the man behind the Cat with some brief sound bytes from the filmmakers and actors and their feelings about Seuss. Disappointing. Next, there's a look at "The S.L.O.W.", the Cat's car. We learn about the vehicle's design and the challenges of getting it made, and getting it going. In "The Kids" we get a behind-the-scenes look at the kids on the set of the movie with some interview footage of the filmmakers gushing about how great it is working with these kids. I liked the kids too, so this feature was a bit of a treat. More features include "The Cat Stacks" which is a look at the making of the scene where the cat balances on the ball holding a stack of items, and "The Mother of All Messes" which looks at how the filmmakers managed to create the mess that threatened to ruin the kids' lives forever. The last feature on the Conrad side is "Dance-Along with The Cat". This is pretty much the only feature aimed at the kids in the audience.
Now, if you select Sally, you'll get a lot more features. First, there's "The Dirt on D.I.R.T." which is a look at bringing the Dynamic Industrial Renovating Tractomagigger (or something like that) to the big screen. You know - it's the machine they use to clean up the mess at the end. Then, there's a feature called "Seussville,
U.S.A." which is a look at the design of the town where Conrad and Sally live. This one was pretty interesting when you begin to realize how much work went into creating this world. The next feature is called "The Purrrr-fect Stamp" which is a look at the making of a stamp commemorating what would have been Theodore Geisel's 100'th birthday - or the Seusscentennial. This is followed by three more features looking at "The Cat", "The Fish" and "The Music". And for those of you who like Easter Eggs, if you highlight the Cat's hat and press the Right Arrow on you remote, you'll find a featurette titled "The Dog in the Hat" about the Conrad and Sally's dog, Nevins - who is actually 4 dogs (or 5 if you include the stuffed version). A cute little extra.
Head to the actual Special Features section of the disc (by selecting the fish) and you'll get a couple of more extras. They include a feature length commentary by director Bo Welch and actor Alec Baldwin, some hilarious outtakes from the film and some deleted scenes, which really could have used an index.
For the adults out there, if you enjoyed the movie in the least, the special features are worth a gander. For the most part, they are all very brief and are just composed of on-set interviews with the cast and crew. They could have easily been put together into one long "behind-the-scenes" featurette, but they're fine.
The Cat in the Hat got a bad rap from critics. The book is a classic, and I don't think adults took to the re-imagining of the story. For kids, the movie is great. They'll accept anything as long as it is moderately entertaining - and this movie accomplishes that. I'd have no problem letting my kids watch this movie some day when they're a bit older.
| The Movie: |
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7/10 |
| The Extras: |
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6/10 |
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The Cat in the Hat
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