Updated ‘Cat in the Hat’ falls flat

Oh boy. I really wanted to like “Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat,” despite being terrified (or horrified, I’m not exactly sure) by a previous Dr. Seuss adaptation from an earlier holiday season, “The Grinch.” I still haven’t recovered from that.

Hollywood continues to bulldoze a path of destruction through my generation’s beloved childhood icons with this update of Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel’s literary classic. Simple in concept, revolutionary for its time, “The Cat in the Hat” remains one of the top ten best-selling hardcover children’s books of all time since its publication in 1957. In 1974, the book was brought to television as an animated special that faithfully brought the book’s characters to life. That’s the Cat my generation remembers: clever, literate, and gently moralistic.

This Cat bears no relation to the 2003 version as realized by increasingly temperamental and uneven comic actor Mike Myers. The Cat is instead a hyperactive sociopath that Myers plays as a cross between Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz” and an amalgamation of his more repellent characters from “Saturday Night Live.” Throw in the prerequisite bodily function jokes necessary to garner the coveted PG rating, along with a roster of unpleasant characters invented specially for this film, and you have a mess far worse than any the original Cat ever unleashed.

It certainly promises a lot in the first 15 minutes or so — at least before the Cat’s arrival. Seuss would have been impressed with how well his fantastical world is realized in live action. The costumes and sets are colorfully surreal, tinted in nostalgic hues. The children, played by über-cute Dakota Fanning and doughy Spencer Breslin, are really the highlight of the film. They are genuine and enthusiastic about their roles — and look like they’re having a lot of the fun. The same can’t be said for Myers, whose manic schtick wears thin about halfway into the film.

An expanded plot bears little resemblance to the original book, and doesn’t seem necessary. It turns out the red crate containing Thing 1 and Thing 2 is also a portal to the Cat’s home dimension, apparently somewhere in a Salvador Dali painting. When the crate’s crab shaped lock comes to life and scurries off on the collar of the family’s wayward dog, the trio go on a rather brief trip to retrieve the runaways — before the contents of the box spill out into the “real” world.

The most glaring absence in the story is what was one of the most integral parts of the book’s plot: the missing moss-covered, three-handled family gredunza is, well, missing from this update. And that just sums up what is wrong with this film. It’s not clever, eloquent or charming — just wretched.

If you want to encourage ADHD in your children, then by all means take them to “Cat in the Hat.” But if you yearn for a story about a mischevious cat, two bored children and a rainy day, dig out your own well-worn copy of the book from the attic and revisit the magic of that version with your family.