‘The Cat in the Hat’ Review: Dr. Seuss’s Agent of Chaos Returns

The Wall Street Journal · Kyle Smith · 2026-11-05 22:12 UTC

Bill Hader voices the feline troublemaker in this live-action take on the classic children’s book.

Things have changed a bit since “The Cat in the Hat” was published in 1957; a mom who today returned home to find her two children had made a mess of everything by playing exuberantly would likely respond by saying, “Thank God.” She would next seek to find out when the Wi-Fi had gone out. Nor are today’s kids even likely to notice when it’s raining, which in Dr. Seuss’s book was the reason the kids were imprisoned in the house and unable to join in their usual outdoor frolic.

The opening moments of the new movie version find the top-hatted Cat (voiced by Bill Hader) visiting a house where two children, in black and white, don’t even notice his arrival. Their eyeballs are where kids’ eyeballs always are: on screens.

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