full NYT review

First-time director Bo Welch has put together a vulgar, uninspired lump of poisoned eye candy that Universal has the temerity to call ‘Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat.’ It is nothing of the kind, despite voice-over narration that occasionally tries to imitate the cadences of Seussian verse and sets that sporadically evoke Seuss’s antic draftsmanship. The Cat is impersonated by Mike Myers, in heavy white makeup and scruffy black fur, speaking in a voice somewhere between Bert Lahr doing the Cowardly Lion and a third-rate Borscht Belt comedian telling toilet jokes.