The Cat in the Hat

Calling the 2026 animated The Cat in the Hat an improvement over the insipid 2003 live-action version starring Mike Myers constitutes the faintest of praise, and this new feature deserves better than that. This latest Cat captures the anarchic yet warm-hearted spirit of the original Dr. Seuss story, and it wisely sends the lead character off on a new adventure rather than try to bloat the classic 1957 tale (which, famously, employed fewer than 300 distinct words) into feature length.

Viewers get a glimpse of the otherworldly bureaucratic agency where the Cat in the Hat (voiced by Bill Hader) toils alongside peers like Pig in a Wig and Giraffe with a Carafe, but the focus is on the central adventure, in which our hero brings both rainy-day fun and a sense of understanding to mopey tween Gabby (Xochitl Gomez, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) and her younger brother Sebastian (Tiago Martinez, Michael). And if the Cat has to unleash a box of Things, annoy the siblings’ pet goldfish (a hilariously stentorian Matt Berry), and unpack Seussian free verse that rhymes “sonatas,” “ricottas,” and “piñatas,” well, that’s just in a day’s work.

Writers-directors Alessandro Carloni (Kung Fu Panda 3) and Erica Rivinoja (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2) go out of their way to avoid the pitfalls that plague so many movies aimed at kids. At least as far back as Hook, it’s become a cliché for films to villainize parents for missing a recital or a little-league game, never mind the fact that the current economy means that the heads of single-parent and even two-parent households are having to work harder than ever to keep their kids fed, clothed, and sheltered. In The Cat in the Hat, part of Gabby and Sebastian’s journey is to learn to appreciate that their mom, Carmen (America Ferrera), isn’t just a hard-working bore who cares only about paperwork; under the tutelage of the Cat, the kids realize that their mother has her own sense of fun and creativity, much of which she had to put aside to take on the gargantuan task of parenthood.

On a more comedic note, Carloni and Rivinioja’s screenplay also scores a comic highlight out of a slow and silent moment that strrrrrretches out in an extravagant, limits-testing manner that Andy Kaufman might appreciate. It may not seem like a big deal, but given how many kids-movie directors underestimate their audience’s attention span, cramming sound and action and sensation into every moment, this deliberately deliberate gag deserves its praise.

While the cast is full of recognizable names, their voice performances never indicate that anyone is coasting on their fame. Hader’s Cat juggles the manic mirth of the storybook character with occasional moments that suggest that his seat-of-the-pants confidence might be hiding some insecurities. Gomez and Martinez, with the help of what’s on the page, create some of the most recognizably human pre-teen animated characters in recent memory, and Bowen Yang and Paula Perl find all the laughs in their smaller roles as, respectively, a blasé bureaucrat and a suspicious landlady.

Art directors Scott Seeto and Amos Sussigan, along with production designer Aidan Sugano, craft distinct visual personalities for the “real” world of Gabby and Sebastian, the vividly bizarre workplace of the Cat, and the various dimensions through which our heroes travel in pursuit of the film’s McGuffin, a device that turns time backward. (Even that doodad carries relevance for the plot, as Gabby is hesitant to move forward and build a new life in the family’s new neighborhood.)

Legend has it that Theodore Geisel, Dr. Seuss himself, never wanted to make movies out of his books after his experiences making The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T; the posthumous big-screen adaptations of his work often bear out his reluctance to turn his odd little tales into feature films. But 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.

Preceding The Cat in the Hat in theaters is a new Looney Tunes short, Daffy Season, in which the titular duck (the recently-deceased Eric Bauza) tries to figure out what’s distracting his nemeses Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny (both Jeff Bergman) from giving chase. If the recent Looney Tunes efforts have attuned your eyes to the characters’ newfound three-dimensionality, this zippy featurette also boasts a visual style — an abstract forest set against a red sky, for example — that calls to mind the animation style of the UPA studio more than it does vintage Warner Bros. Its sport-centricity suggests a soft launch of a Space Jam spin-off franchise, but there are more laughs in these few minutes than in the entirety of Space Jam 2.

Directors: Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni
Screenwriters: Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Carloni; story by Caroline Williams, based on the book by Dr. Seuss
Cast: Bill Hader, Quinta Brunson, Xochitl Gomez, Giancarlo Esposito, America Ferrera. Tituss Burgess, Bowen Yang, Paula Pell, Tiago Martinez
Executive producers: Bill Hader, Susan Brandt, Bill Damaschke, Kelly Marcel, Steve Zissis, Tim Story, Alex Timbers
Producers: Daniela Mazzucato, Jared Stern
Production design: Aidan Sugano
Editing: Dan Molina
Music: Lorne Balfe
Sound design: Ethan Van Der Ryn, Erik Aadahl, supervising sound editors, sound designers;
Production companies: Warner Bros. Animation, Domain Entertainment
In English
107 minutes