Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the 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 two out of four 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" on their weekly movie review program. Roeper said of Myers' performance that "maybe a part of him was realizing as the movie was being made that a live-action version of "The Cat in the Hat" just wasn't a great idea." Ebert compared the film unfavorably to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas": "If there is one thing I've learned from these two movies, it's that we don't want to see Jim Carrey as a Grinch, and we don't want to see Mike Myers as a cat. These are talented comedians, let's see them do their stuff, don't bury them under a ton of technology."