Bill Hader's Cat in the Hat Has a Desk Job Now. Critics Are Split Right Down the Middle.

On Tuesday, our weekend watch guide could not tell you whether The Cat in the Hat was any good, because nobody had reviewed it yet. Hours later the review embargo lifted, and the answer is: depends which critic you ask. As of Wednesday morning, Rotten Tomatoes counted 22 reviews, 11 fresh and 11 rotten, and had not posted a Tomatometer score.

Warner Bros.' animated Dr. Seuss movie, with Bill Hader as the Cat, opens Friday, November 6. Read the reviews side by side and the split comes down to one decision: the filmmakers gave the Cat a job.

The scorecard

• Rotten Tomatoes: 11 fresh and 11 rotten from 22 reviews as of Wednesday, November 4, with no Tomatometer score posted yet.
• Metacritic: 47 from 11 critics, which counts as mixed or average.
• The basics: Rated PG for rude humor, mild language, action and some peril. It runs 1 hour and 47 minutes, per The Hollywood Reporter and Rotten Tomatoes, and a new Looney Tunes short, Daffy Season, plays before it.

The Cat has a desk job now

Dr. Seuss's 1957 book is simple: two bored kids, a rainy day, and a cat who wrecks the house and puts it back together before Mom gets home. Writer-directors Erica Rivinoja (a South Park veteran) and Alessandro Carloni (co-director of Kung Fu Panda 3, a B on our DreamWorks movies ranked list) keep the cat and the mess, and add an employer.

Here the Cat works for the Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, where a Mess-o-Meter scores every assignment. After one mess too many, his boss (Giancarlo Esposito) puts his job on the line and hands him two sad kids: Gabby (Xochitl Gomez) and Sebastian (Tiago Martinez), who have just moved to a new town with their mom (America Ferrera). Their landlady (Paula Pell) bans pets, so their goldfish, Waffles (Matt Berry), lives in hiding. Their moving boxes turn out to be portals to other worlds.

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The case for it

For the fans, the backstory is the point. Deadline's Pete Hammond calls the movie worth the wait and likes that it finally explains where the Cat comes from and where he goes after. "This one is a genuine treat for everyone in the family," he writes, singling out "the ever-changing visual styles" as the film moves between the kids' world, the Cat's office and the worlds inside the boxes.

The Film Verdict's Alonso Duralde goes further: "the makers of The Cat in the Hat have cracked the code, hewing to the spirit of the work if not the letter, and the results are both charming and resonant." He credits the script for not teaching the kids to resent a mother who works too much. They learn she has her own sense of fun, set aside to raise them.

AwardsWatch's Jorge Tenreiro gives it a B and calls it "unquestionably a great time for all the family," with a warning anyone who knows the book will recognize: "Just don't expect him to know when to stop."

The case against it

The rotten reviews object to the same desk job. "The new Cat in the Hat works for a bureaucracy," writes TheWrap's William Bibbiani, "and all his manic behavior is designed to teach children banal lessons about following your dreams and respecting your parents." That is the same lesson about Mom that Duralde praised, read the other way. Bibbiani's verdict: the film "isn't an incompetent production, but it's only competent at regurgitating a brand."

Variety's Owen Gleiberman finds the plot borrowed. Gabby, he writes, is lonely after a move "in the exact mode of Riley, the heroine of Inside Out," an S on our Pixar movies ranked list. Even Tenreiro flags that debt. Gleiberman's summary: "We thought we were watching a Cat in the Hat movie, but we're really watching a Marvel movie for tots."

The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck says it "captures the antic silliness of Dr. Seuss without the charm" and "proves more taxing than enjoyable." Screen Rant's Liz Declan, at 5 out of 10, finds "a narrative as chaotic as the objects the Cat constantly pulls out of his hat."

About those Things

Thing One and Thing Two are now a whole clan who talk in claps and slaps (Variety says the missing Thing Two is a plot point). Scheck says they "mainly seem to be auditioning for their own big-screen spin-off to compete with the Minions," and Gleiberman calls them "born-to-be-franchise-plush-toys." Warner Bros. is building out Seuss either way: Jon M. Chu and Jill Culton's Oh, the Places You'll Go! is dated for March 17, 2028.

The one thing everyone agrees on: the fish

Fresh or rotten, critics keep naming the same cast member, and it is not the star. Scheck calls Matt Berry's Waffles "the true star of the voice cast," whose "hilariously droll, deadpan sophistication" produces "the film's biggest laughs." Hammond calls him "wonderfully erudite," and Duralde calls him "hilariously stentorian."

Scheck's favorite moment is a silent, slow-motion shot of little more than a fish swimming across the screen, which "lasts for around 40 seconds and gets funnier as it goes along." Duralde, from the other side of the split, also praises a slow, silent gag, precisely because so many kids' movies cram noise into every second.

Hader gets respect more than raves. Declan calls his the best screen Cat yet, while Gleiberman finds his "capital-F Friendly" take "a bit of a letdown."

Is it better than the 2003 movie?

Mostly, yes. Scheck's bottom line is "Better than the live-action version, but not by much," and Metacritic agrees: 47 for the new film, 19 for Mike Myers' version, which also sits at 11 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 149 reviews. Bibbiani is the holdout: he does not call the Myers film better, but he does call it "more interesting in comparison."

Bad reviews did not sink that one: it opened to $38.3 million and made $101.1 million in the US, per Box Office Mojo. Forecaster Todd Thatcher has the new one opening lower, at $30.5 million, second to Godzilla Minus Zero at $36.2 million. Illumination's The Grinch opened to $67.6 million in November 2018.

Should you take the kids?

Two practical notes. The villain, a shadowy creature called the Something, may scare the littlest viewers "just a tad," per Tenreiro. And stay through the end credits, or, as Hammond warns, "you will miss a great bit replaying the entire movie in mere seconds."

Then settle it yourself. Add The Cat in the Hat to Shortlist and rank it head to head against the animated movies your family already loves, two at a time. Does it beat The Grinch? Our movie tier list guide shows how, and our November theaters guide has the rest of the month.

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