The Cat in the Hat (film) film one star, stating, ""Cat", another overblown Hollywood raid on Dr. Seuss, has a draw on Mike Myers, who inexplicably plays the Cat by mimicking Bert Lahr in "The Wizard of Oz"." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 2 out of 4 stars. Although he praised the production design, he considered the film to be "all effects and stunts and CGI and prosthetics, with no room for lightness and joy". Ebert and co-host Richard Roeper gave the film "Two Thumbs Down". Roeper said of Myers' performance that "Maybe a part of him was realizing as the movie
The Cat in the Hat he discovered that it "couldn't have "legs" or a "beak" or a "tail". Neither a "left" foot or a "right" foot." On his approach to writing "The Cat in the Hat" he wrote, "The method I used is the same method you use when you sit down to make apple stroodle [sic] without stroodles." Geisel variously stated that the book took between nine and 18 months to create. Donald Pease notes that he worked on it primarily alone, unlike with previous books, which had been more collaborative efforts between Geisel and his wife, Helen. This marked a general trend in