Producers: Daniela Mazzucato and Jared Stern   Directors: Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Corloni   Screenplay: Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Corloni   Cast: Bill Hader, Xochitl Gomez, Tiago Martinez, America Ferrera, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bowen Yang, Paula Pell and Tituss Burgess   Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Grade: C-

This animated take on the classic 1957 children’s book by Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel is an improvement on Bo Welch’s misbegotten 2003 live-action version.  But that’s a very low bar: the Mike Myers movie was regarded as a disaster when it was released, and has actually gone down in people’s estimation since.

And in many respects this new effort by writer-directors Erica Rivinoja and Alessandro Corloni doesn’t escape a similar fate for lack of trying: its hectic bombardment of noise and phantasmagoria goes beyond wearying to come close to unendurable.  But it was an inevitability that Seuss’s fable would be expanded to meet the expectations of today’s family audiences, reared as they’ve been on overkill; from that perspective “The Cat in the Hat” does what it probably had to in order to succeed in the current cinematic marketplace, as crassly annoying as fans of the source might find the result.

In this version, the Cat (voiced with maniacal glee by Bill Hader) is an employee of something called the Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, and the bane of his boss Mr. Hoogenboom (Giancarlo Esposito, in full bullying mode), who’s furious over his proclivity for making messes of every mission to uplift unhappy children; a prologue shows the devastating aftermath of one recent disaster.  Convinced by Sherri (sweetly shy Quinta Brunson), the head of HR, that he must give the Cat one more chance before firing him, Hoogenboom assigns him to a tough case he’ll certainly fail.

It’s that of Gabby (intense Xochiti Gomez), a surly adolescent with an astronomical hairdo, who’s furious with her mother Carmen (America Ferrera, pleasant but barely present) for moving her, along with her younger brother Sebastian (chirpy Tiago Martinez, saddled with shouting “Whoa!” all too often as the action revs up) and their pet goldfish Waffles (Matt Berry, who’s given the best lines and delivers them wittily) to a new town.  They’re carrying their belongings into an apartment under the ever-watchful gaze of Patty (Paula Pell, shouting most of her lines), a landlord obsessed with a rulebook that includes “No pets!” and ready to evict at the least infraction.

Enter the Cat, whose ideas about creating fun expand those of Seuss’s original feline by a massive order of magnitude.  At first Gabby and Sebastian are more frightened than welcoming, and Waffles is obstinately set against him (especially after his own welfare is threatened).  But when Gabby finds out that the Cat has raided the Institute’s Supply Cabinet to abscond with a forbidden item called the Gobacker, a watch that can reverse time, she accepts him as an ally, thinking the device can return her family to the town where they’d previously lived (although despite being a talented trumpeter, she’s intent on giving up her life as a “band nerd,” which is what she’d be back there).  Cue the Cat’s transformation of an old couch into a vehicle that can take him, the kids and Waffles to surrealistic realms where all sorts of fantastic creatures dwell, appropriating the items stored within the cardboard moving boxes for inspiration.

So we’re treated, for example, to a marching band on a football field, made up of instruments playing themselves, and an underwater circus.  The underwater sequence also features massive pairs of Sebastian’s underpants floating around with anthropomorphic ambitions.  And, of course, there emerges along the way a gigantic monster intent on consuming all in its wake, which needs to be defeated if the world is to survive.

It’s called the Something and is related, in a way that won’t be revealed here, to Seuss’s original Things, which jump out of the red box the Cat brings into the kids’ apartment, their flaming blue hair and red pajamas intact.  But there aren’t just two of them; there’s a whole platoon in various shapes and sizes.  And they communicate in their own special language, which consists of clucking sounds combined with rhythmic slaps to their bodies, presumably intended as a counterpart to the gibberish spouted by minions, in hopes of generating a spinoff.  So the pandemonium isn’t confined to the imaginary realms to which the Cat and his clients travel, but infects the apartment as well, much to the infuriation of picky Patty. 

Inevitably there are lessons to be learned from the frantic mayhem, the most obvious being the motto “Live Laugh Love” written on a poster incongruously found in that landlady’s apartment, which in the end she’ll learn to embrace in one of the finale’s obvious turns.  But, of course, the main effect of it all is on Gabby, who’s taught to appreciate how loving her mother is and how she fostered the creativity the girl has unwisely chosen to renounce but, thanks to the Cat’s intervention, renews instead, picking up her trumpet once more.

As for the Cat, not only is Hoogenboom’s plan to get rid of him foiled, but he’s primed for a series of sequels—as the end credits self-referentially suggest are already in the planning stages.

Rivinoja and Corloni have put a lot of effort into the movie—too much, in fact, given the overloaded scenario—and so does the voice cast, which also includes Bowen Yang and Tituss Burgess, as well as the artists at Warner Bros. Animation, who gussy up the visuals with different templates to suggest the varying locales and timelines (some scenes are done up in black-and-white, others in 2-D looking color format and most in obviously computer-generated style).  It makes for a production design by Aidan Sugano that’s too anxious to call attention to itself, something that can also be said of the ever-busy editing of Dan Molina as well as the score of Lorne Balfe. 

In fact, the failure of this new “Cat” is one it shares with the 2003 one, though not to the same fatal degree: it just tries too hard, becoming frantic and bombastic.  That’s proven by what’s probably its most memorable moment, when, in that underwater circus, Waffles is being induced to do a trick (“jumping” through a hoop the kids are holding aloft).  He glides almost noiselessly, across the screen, so slowly that it plays like a welcome pause in the mayhem, an oasis of calm amidst the incessant badgering surrounding it.  You can’t help but chuckle.

But the kids might just get bored before the next round of nonstop raucous shenanigans and supposedly naughty jokes.  That’s what they’re now primed to expect, more’s the pity.