I have my toddler nephew to “thank” for this one.
Yesterday evening I flew back from Kansas to Florida; while it was nice to hang out with family and have a toddler suddenly determine that I was his new best friend (hopefully he's not heartbroken that I won't be back there for an entire year) being at home is a great feeling. Being around three young boys is absolutely exhausting-I don't know how my sister does it. Anyhow, the littlest one wanted to see Mike Myers as a furry; the reasons why are unknown to me... then again he isn't like Jim Stafford—he likes both spiders and snakes. The appearance of Myers as a cat-man is truly the least of its problems and this was indeed as ghastly as I had heard for all these years.
From the very beginning this was just wrong, a total disaster that was thoroughly unpleasant and totally antagonistic against anyone watching this. I have many questions that probably don't have satisfying answers. Why did they go in this garish direction? Why did it have multiple moments that made me glad my nephew was probably too young to understand what was being said or done? Why does Myers play the titular character as if he was Austin Powers, except with a different accent, was in the middle of a coke binge, and was a gigantic loathsome A-hole? Why did the Dr. Seuss estate approve of this nightmare that totally disgraced beloved children's literary characters? Thing One and Thing Two fare worst of all, including totally nightmarish visages. The final act, it made me think that perhaps I should have said “Austin Powers, in the middle of a brown acid trip” due to how bizarre it got.
The most surprising is that this is one of the most polarizing motion pictures on the entire site of Letterboxd. Many actually rate this better than I do and that is perplexing. Is it nostalgia? Is it ironically giving this 4 to 5 stars as if this was The Room? I can admit that it at least was shot nice (by three time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki, of all people!) and the loud production design was at least interesting-the director did that role for multiple Tim Burton movies. Otherwise, what a nightmare for the two children that made up the lead characters; it was preposterous that they somehow learned life lessons from a creature seemingly from the bowels of Hades that treats them both terribly, threatens multiple times to kill their dog, has the hots for their mom... the overwhelming thought I'll always have for this disaster is how something so appalling could involve so many talented people and treat a beloved character for kids so poorly. Seeing almost all the cars in town be a 5 door Ford Focus except for Alec Baldwin's Ford Thunderbird-and all were Day-Glo colors... I am sure The Blue Oval regrets the sponsorship designed to show off then-new vehicles.
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