The Cat in the Hat (film) with some critics, stating that it should have instead been rated PG-13 in relation to its high amount of adult content. Leonard Maltin in his Movie Guide gave it one and a half stars out of four saying that the "Brightly colored adaptation of the beloved rhyming book for young children is a betrayal of everything Dr. Seuss ever stood for, injecting potty humor and adult (wink-wink) jokes into a mixture of heavy-handed slapstick and silliness." Maltin also said that the film's official title which included "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat" was "an official insult". Conversely, "Variety" praised
The Cat in the Hat (film) blame. The Cat having overheard this, happily returns to clean up the mess with a great cleaning invention, fixes up the house, says goodbye to the kids and departs just as Joan arrives. Larry returns thinking he has busted the kids, but when Joan sees the clean house and a messy Larry, she does not believe and dumps him. After the successful party, Joan spends quality time with her kids while the Cat along with Thing 1 and Thing 2 walk off into the sunset. DreamWorks Pictures acquired rights to the original book in 1997. However, production did not originally