As the story begins, siblings Sally (Dakota Fanning) and Conrad (Spencer Breslin) are bored, having been left at home with a sleeping baby-sitter while their over-stressed single mom (Kelly Preston), a real estate agent, prepares a company party for her germaphobic boss (Sean Hayes). Suddenly, the Cat in the Hat appears with a "phunometer" to measure their "fun" quotient. Since Sally's a control-freak and Conrad's a rule-breaker, The Cat transports them to a fantastical world - where they meet Thing #1 and Thing #2 - and learn valuable life-lessons, albeit while making the mother of all messes. The bad taste subplot of their mother's smarmy suitor (Alec Baldwin) and the scene with socialite Paris Hilton dancing at a rave should have been left in the litter box.

Problem is: production designer Bo Welch ("Edward Scissorhands," "Beetlejuice," "Men in Black") is a novice director. Working with designer Alex McDowell and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, Welch's highly-stylized CGI concept may be inventive and imaginative but his directing isn't. And Mike Myers isn't charismatic enough to rise above the prosaic script by Alec Berg & David Mandel & Jeff Schaffer that veers too far from the mischievous Seussian spirit. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Cat in the Hat" prowls in with a shtick-filled 6. It's may be a young children's film, but it's not a family film - and there is a difference.