Like "Tunes," "Cat" is a film adaptation of a beloved kids' franchise, but unlike, say, "Harry Potter," it's a movie that nobody in particular seems to want or need. It comes on the heels of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," the top-grossing film of 2000, so more Seussian set design and the casting of an A-list comic actor were inevitable.

And inevitable is how "The Cat in the Hat" feels — it's a calculating Hollywood film, the kind of product (and it is indeed a product, not any kind of work of art) where every joke and set piece has been vetted by committee. You can almost smell the coffee from the studio executives' offices.

The framework of the story is similar to the slight original tale: A human-sized cat in a candy-striped top hat visits two housebound kids while Mom's away and introduces a world of fun and chaos, then helps the kids do some last-minute cleaning before they get into huge trouble.

There's not much story there, so Mike Myers as The Cat does what he can to pad out the film to 87 minutes: With the help of wacky special effects and his sidekicks, Thing 1 and Thing 2 (creepy, doglike Ritalin-deprived mini troublemakers), The Cat makes jokes out of domestic boredom, playing different characters, jumping on the couch and finding ways to humiliate the constantly napping baby sitter.

Myers affects a strange, hybrid accent, part New Jersey, part Canadian, then lets his voice fly all over the world as an infomercial host, a stoner environmentalist, Carmen Miranda. . . .Buried underneath all that fur and make-up, Myers really only has his voice and his eyes to express himself (he's not much of a physical comedian) and the verbal nature of his comedy makes for some static, uninspired chatter.

Much of the film rides on Myers, and unlike Jim Carrey in "The Grinch," the actor and the screenwriters forgo any kind of consistent character development and instead opt for a random series of sketches, each less funny than the last. The humor in the film is about hairballs, flatulence and disturbingly lecherous behavior. It's a reminder that Myers' last film, "Austin Powers in Goldmember," was a comedic wash. If the Grinch and Cat characters act out of each comic actor's id, the Seuss films have shown that Jim Carrey has a darkly disturbing need to be loved and Mike Myers is willing to continually pander and appeal to a lower common denominator with each passing film.

Still, the film isn't a complete waste. The child actor Dakota Fanning, the go-to girl for playing Palm Pilot-wielding Type-A tykes (see "Uptown Girls"), is a charmer, and Alec Baldwin as a brutish neighbor romancing the children's mom hams it up like he's on "Saturday Night Live."

Sean Hayes of "Will & Grace" stands out as a germ-fearing boss and as the voice of the bulbous, talking goldfish. You wonder why such a hyperactive master of broad strokes wasn't cast as The Cat.

The fanciful art direction creates environments that all look like they're made of taffy, a pastel world that in some parts replicates Seuss' visual style. But it's never as convincing as Whoville in "The Grinch," and there's no through-line: The sets have no real characters, no real story, no point, really, to ground them.

The movie seems destined to make parents scratch their heads and wonder whether this was what Seuss had in mind. It's unclear what's more disturbing in a kids' film — a stereotypical Asian baby-sitter character who would be protested if she appeared on any TV sitcom or a cameo by the recently scandalized Paris Hilton in a nightclub scene. (You read that right. The film has a nightclub scene.)

Woe to those same parents who'll have to watch the eventual DVD of the film on an endless loop. There ought to be a support group.

"The Cat in the Hat" is not the worst kids' film out there, but it's certainly the most puzzling. It's got a few laughs and a few neat visuals. It's the kind of film that some children might like, but that none will love the way they do "Finding Nemo" or "Holes," movies with memorable characters, humor and heart.

The film's worst sin is that it seems unnecessary: silly and boorish, a houseguest you can't wait to get rid of.

If it has to be given a rating on a scale of stars:

I give it just two.