It will make money
But the critics shredded it.
The gentlest criticism may come from Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer, who quotes the book's goldfish: "No, I do not like it, not one little bit!" Several critics, Rickey included, try their hand at writing Seuss-type doggerel to describe their reaction to the film. Manohla Dargis begins hers in the Los Angeles Times with: "Why oh why did they make it like that/Oh why did they ruin The Cat in the Hat?" Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News rhymes in: "The book's charm is gone/And so is its grace./This Cat in the Hat/Really stinks up the place." "Poor Dr. Seuss," mourns Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, "whose fragile wonderments have been crushed under a mountain of technology."