'Cat' leaves bad hairball taste

One simple piece of advice for the holiday season: avoid The Cat in the Hat. I never saw Gigli, but I'm pretty sure this movie could give it a run for its money. This obnoxious movie about an apparently schizophrenic 6-foot-tall cat has Dr. Seuss rolling in his grave. It doesn't come anywhere close to the fun and friendly children's book we all loved as kids.\nUnfortun-ately, Mike Myers got caught in the middle of it all. This expert of physical comedy couldn't even salvage this horrendous attempt at a movie. For some reason he felt the need to use his Linda Richman voice as the cat, to steal the laugh of the lion from The Wizard of Oz and to use the catch phrase "Oh, yeah" at completely random times, all of which don't help this movie out in the least.\nAnd you have to feel bad for the poor kids whose parents convinced them it would be a good idea to take these movie roles. Sally (Dakota Fanning) is the neurotic and slightly obsessive-compulsive little girl who does very well with what she was given. Conrad (Spencer Breslin), however, struggles to depict the trouble-making older brother that the dialogue calls for, but at least he has an excuse -- he's 11. The rest of the cast isn't so lucky.\nAll of these shortcomings could be overlooked if the movie was at least somewhat funny, but it was far from it. The little kids in the theater didn't even laugh. The few points at which I did manage a chuckle, though, were so vulgar and over the kids' heads that they bordered on inappropriate. \nLet's look at a few examples: \n• While talking to a muddy garden tool: "You dirty hoe." \n• While looking at a flaming toilet: "That really burns my (segue into something that rhymes with ass)." \nThe attempt to make this movie amusing to adults made it uncomfortably shocking. If you're not going to make it funny for kids, why bother with adults? The real low point came when the cat and the kids somehow end up in an underground (literally) rave where Paris Hilton makes a two-second appearance. Thank goodness she didn't open her mouth.\nSave your sanity: Skip this movie and hold on to the memories of that fun-loving cat who came to visit one rainy day.