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The Cat in the Hat
Directed by Erica Rivinoja
Arturo A. Hernandez
Produced by Ron Howard
Brian Grazer
Written by Maya Forbes
Wallace Wolodarsky
Erica Rivinoja
Arturo A. Hernandez
Based on The Cat in the Hat
by Dr. Seuss
Starring Jack Black
Owen Laramore
Brooklynn Prince
Michael Keaton
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Music by John Powell
Cinematography Stephen W. Childers
Edited by Vanara Taing
Production
companies
Warner Animation Group
Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date April 28, 2023
Running time 105 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $90 million
Box office $592 million


The Cat in the Hat (also known as Dr. Seuss' The Cat In The Hat and credited onscreen as such) is a 2023 American animated comedy film directed by Erica Rivinoja, and Arturo A. Hernandez in their directorial debuts, based on the 1957 children's book of the same name by Dr. Seuss. It serves as the third screen adaptation of the story after the 1971 television special starring Allan Sherman and the 2003 live-action film starring Mike Myers, as well as a slight remake of the latter. The film features the voices of Jack Black, Owen Laramore, Brooklynn Prince, Michael Keaton, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. In the film, two bored kids are visited by a fun-loving and optimistic magical cat wearing a hat who intends to show them how to have fun while their mother is away.

Produced by the Warner Animation Group and Imagine Entertainment, The Cat In The Hat was released theatrically in the United States on April 28, 2023 by Warner Bros. Pictures, after a few delays from a planned November 2021 release due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $592 million worldwide at the box office, becoming the highest-grossing animated film released by Warner Bros. and the highest-grossing Dr. Seuss film adaptation. The Cat in the Hat is also the last film to be produced under the Warner Animation Group name before the animation studio label became Warner Bros. Pictures Animation that on June 9 of that same year. At the 96th Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Animated Feature, becoming the first Dr. Seuss film adaptation to be nominated for an Oscar in this category.

The film's success led to a franchise, with a spinoff, Thing One & Thing Two, on October 3, 2025, and a sequel, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, on December 25, 2026.

Plot[]

Outgoing yet clumsy 10-year-old Cody A. White has a big imagination, which is not understood nor taken seriously by either his behaved yet selfish sister Sally and or his single mother Joselyn, because of his imaginative scenarios' tendency to accidentally make messes around the house, which often gets him into consequent trouble. The White family live in the countryside near the town of Countyville, where Joselyn works as a real estate agent for Harold Humberfloob. Joselyn is also dating their next-door-neighbor Leonard "Leo" Clark, much to Cody's chagrin.

One day, Joselyn is called back to the office, leaving the kids with babysitter Ms. Quest (after the previous one quit) and forbidding them from entering the living room, which is being kept pristine for an office meet-and-greet party she is hosting that night, which would result in her being fired if it is messy. When she leaves, it starts to rain outside. Sally and Cody meet an anthropomorphic talking tuxedo cat, the Cat in the Hat, with a red-and-white-striped top hat named the Cat in the Hat, who intends to teach them how to have fun, although the family goldfish, Christopher Krinklebine, does not want the Cat around when Joselyn is away. The Cat leaves a trail of fun and releases two troublemaking creatures named Thing 1 and Thing 2 from a crate he locks and forbids the children from tampering with. Despite the Cat's warning, Cody, out of curiosity, picks the lock, which attaches to the collar of the family dog Nixon. The Cat, Cody, and a reluctant Sally then set out to find Nixon and the lock.

Meanwhile, Leo is revealed to be unemployed, broke, and lazy, pretending to be a successful businessman to both marry Joselyn for her money and send Cody off to military school because of the messes his imagination accidentally creates. Leo sees Nixon running across the street and tracks Joselyn to tell her. The three drive across Countyville on the Cat's "Super Luxurious Omni-directional Watchamajigger" (S.L.O.W. for short) in pursuit of Leo and Nixon. At the park, as they search for Nixon, Sally and Cody share each other's reasons for their flaws, where Cody became misunderstood as a troublemaker by his classmates after the week before when he showed a creation school, which went haywire and accidentally made a mess out of the classroom, resulting in him being laughed at; Sally's ex-friends who were once her friends, at the same time, but one classmate made fun of her, which made her lose her temper and end her friendship with her friends; Cody's imaginations has been misunderstood as a mess and Sally has been sometimes bossy ever since. The Cat, Sally, and Cody manage to eventually find Nixon and Leo in town, where they retrieve Nixon but are too late to intercept Joselyn and Leo. Sally lashes out at Cody for ruining the family's lives and disowns him.

After a while, as a heartbroken and guilt-ridden Cody is about to lose hope while sulking over the damage his recklessness caused between him and his family, he suddenly realizes he does exactly the opposite of what he is told, and uses this to their advantage to have them stall Joselyn and Leo. An ensuing chase erupts, all the while unnoticed by Joselyn, who is occupied talking to Things 1 and 2, who have stopped her by posing as police officers. Having deduced what Cody was plotting, Laeo grabs the motorcycle and pursues him and the Cat across New York, telling Joselyn to meet him at the house. As he gains on them, a reformed Sally, having had a change of heart, shows up on another motorcycle and intercepts Leo long enough to rejoin the group and reconcile with Cody.

When Cody, Sally, and the Cat arrive, an enraged Leo cuts them off but sneezes uncontrollably due to his allergic reaction to the Cat. The Cat takes the advantage and scares him away, only for them to find out the house has been turned into a surreal realm called "A Messy, Messy Land", with Leo falling into a purple ocean. Cody, Sally, and the Cat navigate through A Messy, Messy Land's colorful jungle, the "Fungle", eventually finding the crate and the "funnel", a purple tornado that is the most dangerous part of A Messy, Messy Land. Sally is nearly sucked into the funnel's black hole, but Cody locks the crate and saves his sister's life and the house. The house also returns to normal, but then immediately falls apart. Furiously thinking that the whole day's could-have-been disasters was the Cat's fault, Cody and Sally kick him out of the house.

Cody resigns himself to facing the consequences when Joselyn comes home, to which Sally follows suit, and the two hold hands. The Cat, having overheard this, returns with an impressive cleaning invention, revealing the day of having fun was intended for the kids to learn from the errors of their past ways, and fixes up the house with the help of Things 1 and 2. Cody and Sally reconcile with the Cat, who emotionally bids them farewell and departs just as Joselyn arrives. A soaked Leo, having survived A Messy, Messy Land, arrives at the scene, thinking he busted the kids, and tries to tell Joselyn about everything. However, Joselyn, seeing how clean her house is, as the Cat had fixed everything before her arrival, does not believe his story and politely breaks up with him.

After the party becomes a success, Joselyn spends quality time with Sally and Cody, who have now become best friends, while the Cat and Things 1 and 2 walk off into the sunset.

Cast[]

  • Jack Black as the Cat in the Hat, a six-foot tall anthropomorphic tuxedo cat. He has an overly-optimistic and happy-go-lucky attitude in a way that he has a positive outlook on life where he enjoys having fun without much on his mind, a flexible versatility (as he can become different shapes), and wears an oversized red bow tie and a magical red and white top hat which can reveal many humorous gadgets.
  • Owen Laramore as Cody A. White, Joselyn's son and the imaginative, caring, and outgoing yet mostly accident-prone older brother of Sally. He has a big imagination, but his accident-prone nature is why his imagination is not taken seriously much, and, in fact, scorned by his family as misbehavior, much to his dismay. He is also the narrator of the film.
  • Brooklynn Prince as Sally White, Joselyn's daughter and the well-behaved yet cynical younger sister of Cody. Although she cares about her family and is the best at obeying rules, she can also sometimes come off as a bit egotistical, notably towards Cody because of his accidental tendency to make messes when he uses his imagination.
  • Michael Keaton as Leonard "Leo" Clark, the Whites' next-door neighbor who is determined to both marry Joselyn to mooch off her wealth and send Cody to military school just to dispose of him, because he takes Cody's imaginative lifestyle the least seriously, hugely because of the messes the latter accidentally makes. He is also shown to be lazy, unemployed, debt-ridden, and allergic to cats.
  • Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Joselyn White, Sally and Cody's single mother. She is a workaholic real-estate agent working for the New York Humberfloob Real Estate who is hosting the year's Humberfloob Meet-and-Greet party.
  • Bill Hader as Christopher Krinklebine, the Whites' pet fish. Though he cares about the house and his owners, he is also pessimistically sour toward the Cat's fun-loving approach to life, as he dislikes when strangers are in the family's house.
    • Hader also voices Harold Humberfloob, Joan's boss.
  • Dee Bradley Baker as Thing 1 and Thing 2, two gibbering trouble-making creatures that the Cat brings with him.
  • Frank Welker as Nixon, the Whites' pet dog.
  • Amy Hill as Ms. Quest, an overweight, elderly woman who was hired to babysit the kids, but sleeps through her job, which serves as a running gag.
  • Clint Howard as Kate the Caterer
  • Jenna von Oÿ as a secretary who works for Humberfloob Real Estate.

Reception[]

Box office[]

The Cat in the Hat opened on April 26, 2023 and grossed $260 million its opening weekend. It ended its theatrical run on July 27, 2023, having grossed $239 million in North America and $353 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $592 million, against a production budget of $90 million. It is the highest-grossing Dr. Seuss film and the highest-grossing Warner Bros. animated film. This, along the box office success of most other animated films released in theaters that year, led to moviegoers starting to see the year as animation's "saving grace", after three years of most family films struggling in theaters during the pandemic, while a few animated films managed to cross the $500 million mark even before The Cat in the Hat would come in.

Critical response[]

The Cat in the Hat received positive reviews from film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 90% approval rating based on 273 reviews. The site's consensus reads, "The Cat in the Hat may not be the wisest feature film as an adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book, but it works great as a standalone animated feature with likable characters, amazing animation, and entertaining comedy". On Metacritic, it has a weighted score of 75 out of 100 based on 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Michael O' Sullivan of The Washington Post gave the film four and a half out of five stars, writing, "The colorfully-animated The Cat in the Hat will surely please younger viewers, and, more likely, many Dr. Seuss fans". In a 4 star review, Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal went on to say that Jack Black's performance of the titular character was superior to that of Mike Myers, and praised the performances of Black, Laramore, and Prince. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a 4-star review, writing, "The Cat in the Hat manages to keep Dr. Seuss' original vision intact, living up to its potential to make Dr. Seuss' source material into something great and fun to watch". Bill Goodykoontz of The Arizona Republic went to on to praise the film as being "a film based on a cherished Dr. Seuss book that is definite help for Seuss' legacy to take steps toward Pixar's creativity and emotional resonance".

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