Loud Cat.(Now Playing)

Among its many annoying aspects, political correctness tends to put a damper on the joy that comes with revisiting old literary classics.

A corrective impulse ruined the 2000 film version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which twisted the Dr. Seuss story by making the Grinch a victim and the Whos materialistic meanies. (I much prefer author Theodor Geisel's explanation for the Grinch's grumpiness: "His heart was two sizes too small.")

And so it was with great trepidation that I settled in for Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, another big--budget Seuss adaptation from Grinch producer Brian Grazer. All signs pointed in the wrong direction. The television commercials, for instance, made Cat look bloated, manic, and antithetical to Geisel's gentle spirit.

Well, if Grinch sent the late author spinning in his grave, Cat should at least slow down the rate at which he's rotating. At 82 minutes, the film hardly counts as a meticulously faithful adaptation. At the least, it doesn't betray its source materials essence in the name of political correctness.

The film version of The Cat in the Hat is wild and anarchic, sometimes too much for its own good, but it's worth remembering that some people said the same of Geisel's 1957 written version when it nudged aside Dick and Jane in the world of children's literature. An ode to mischief--making, particularly the sort that can only be done when your mother is out, the story celebrates the impish creativity of youth--in which imagination and a little rule-breaking can salvage a rainy day.

Under Grazer's leadership, the filmmakers could easily have spun this into a modern cautionary tale. If the movie had gone the way of Grinch, the troublemaking brother and sister would have been taken by a social worker to counseling, and the Cat would have been neutered. Instead, first-time director Bo Welch, whose background is as a production designer on such films as Edward Scissorhands and Men in Black, dives head--first into the naughtiness. The Cat's first act is to do what the brother had earlier been scolded for--sliding on a tray down the stairs.

The writers might have shown some restraint. The pervasive blue humor, mostly from the ...