"The Cat in the Hat" the book vs. the movie

     The book The Cat in the Hat features a brother and sister stuck inside with nothing to do on a rainy day.  Their mother has left the house for the day.  Soon the Cat in the Hat barges through the door and creates havoc by doing all kinds of silly things that should not be done in the house.  The children seem to be overwhelmed by the fact that a giant cat wearing a hat has intruded their home and is making a mess of their house.  The constant nagging of the goldfish acts as a reminder that the can should not be there and must leave.  All ends well,everything (even Thing 1 and Thing 2) is completely gone and back to normal before their mother comes home.  This is a simple, funny children's book that engages children in rhyme and make believe.
     The movie The Cat in the Hat starring Mike Myers and Dakota Fanning is quite different from the original Dr. Seuss book.  The movie keeps the same premise of the two children being left home with nothing much to do, but it takes the liberty of changing and adding details to lenghten and modernize the story.  Sally, the young girl, is a total control freak in the movie.  she seems to have the soul of a thirty-year-old.  She has no friends because she is so bossy and her day is planned to the last minute on her digital journal.  Her brother however, is the complete opposite.  He is very untidy and seems to be quite the troublemaker.  In the very first of the movie he sleds down the steps on a contraption he created.  Instead of being "out for the day" as in the book, the movie modernizes their mother by making her an aspiring realtor with a very needy boss.  Her boss and colleagues will be coming to her house this evening and she instructs the children to keep the house tidy.  Of course this will never happen once the Cat in the Hat enters.  Also, another new twist to the story is that the mother has a boyfriend who secretly does not like children.  The kids see him for what he really is and they do everything the can to get rid of him.  Mike Myers is the actor who plays the Cat.  His antics seem to put poor Sally on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  The goldfish is present too and argues incessantly with the Cat.  Thing 1 and Thing 2 are present in the movie and teach Sally's brother how annoying it is to do the opposite of what someone tells you to do.  The house is progressively destroyed and revived at the end before the mother sees any of the mess.
     I did not enjoy the movie very much at all.  They took a classic children's book and modernized the storyline until the movie hardly resembled the book at all.  Also, as is the case with a lot of children's movies these days, there is a lot of adult humor used. I believe this is inappropriate for children's movies.  One such instance is when the Cat is talking to a gardening hoe and says "Dirty hoe! Oh, I'm sorry baby, you know I love you." Kids laugh, but I don't think they really know the double meaning.  Using such antics is just a way of drawing in an older audience or perhaps a way of engaging the parents' attention into the movie. 
     The writers apparently tried to modernize this 1957 story, but in doing so they created a movie that hardly represented the original book.  The Cat did a lot of funny, silly stuff in the book, but in the movie there were things like the cat being hit in the crotch, his tail being cut off, and rude comments made by the cat.  I believe the movie is not for small children as the book is, but is focused more on attracting an older audience.