Music Composed by David Newman
Rating: ** 1/2

I will go ahead and spoil the most enjoyable part of the movie for you: It occurs right at the beginning; in fact, right in the first minute. The picture fades up from black to reveal not the traditional Universal Pictures logo, but one that has been “redrawn” in the Dr. Seuss style. This gag continues on into the DreamWorks logo, and ultimately through the opening credits. Underneath it all is a playful piece of music by David Newman, a good composer who rarely gets to score big ‘event’ movies like this one. The cue is pretty typical of him – blending nervous electronic elements with a light, whimsical orchestra – and, quite frankly, combines with the images on screen to create something delightful.

For an instant, you might think – based on the clever logo gag and the lovely music that you’re in for a real treat over the next 70 some minutes: That ahead lies a mischievous, witty film with just a twist of sweetness and magic. Around the film’s two-minute mark, however (which, coincidentally, is when the titles end and the “live action” part of movie begins), you realize that you’re wrong. Really wrong.

Describing in detail what makes the new big-screen version of The Cat In The Hat so garishly unpleasant requires more space, I suspect, than what I have to work with here. Suffice to say it is awful plodding on without plot and purpose while managing to be highly disrespectful to the source material and the memory of Dr. Seuss.

David Newman

When the project was first announced, it was touted that Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (hot off their Broadway phenomenon Hairspray) would compose songs for The Cat In The Hat and that Shaiman would stick around to do the score. Midway through post-production, however, Shaiman withdrew due to reported unhappiness with the project (Yeah, no shit!), and Newman stepped in. The resulting CD from Decca contains two Shaiman / Wittman songs (although the second is only 22 seconds long!), a highly unnecessary cover of the Beatles classic “Getting Better” by Smash Mouth, and about 43 minutes of David Newman’s score.

Newman’s musical contribution to the film is not awful, but it is not especially noteworthy either. Apart from the first part of the “Main Titles – The Kids” cue that I was so taken with, the music and the resulting CD suffers from the same problems that the film does: both are highly chaotic and full of moments that feel more like they’re there to pad things out to a feature’s length than for any narrative reason.

The film, as stated, can be extremely obnoxious at times, and the music is more than happy to follow suit. To his normal array of ordinarily pleasingly synth sounds, Newman adds some truly irritating kazoo-like instruments every now and again. Need an example? Check out the middle part of the album’s fourth track (“Two Things / Couch / Jumping / Leaky Crate”). The music was written for a scene in which Thing One and Thing Two adorned with freakish make-up similar to what the Whos had in 2000’s The Grinch show up and trash the house. The effect is something like a child banging on an instrument just to hear it make noise. While that might have been the point and the most apropos decision Newman could have made for the film, one has to admit that such moments make one wish that a Thing would appear suddenly and trash the CD player.

Only a handful of David Newman’s film scores have actually made it to CD, and I was thrilled when I found out that most of the Decca release would be devoted to him. To be honest with you, though, my feelings now are a bit more ambivalent. I suppose I hope the CD sells well so that more of Newman’s music will be released in the future, but on the other hand, I have to admit that apart from a couple good cues, this really isn’t one of his better efforts. Hunt down Mr. Destiny, I Love Trouble or The Phantom instead; all superior listens more worthy of your time and money.

The Shaiman / Wittman songs are likewise not the best we’ve heard from the pair. “Fun, Fun, Fun,” seems to exist for the sole purpose of getting the Cat to almost say something dirty. (College students should take a drink every time the Cat makes an obscure reference to getting his balls cut off). Much has made of the presence of these Tony award-winning songwriters on the album, but the contribution is too minimal to warrant a purchase for that reason.

Newman himself gets 13 tracks on this 16 track CD, but as they’re sequenced out of order (and do not really tell the story anyway), so I won’t go through the trouble of describing them. Thematically, however, all the major elements are introduced right in the first track. Very quickly, Newman establishes a welcoming melody for piano, synthesizer, and glockenspiel that will be passed around the orchestra and distorted in all sorts of clever ways throughout the film and album. This is actually a pretty standard David Newman trick similar to what he did in 2002’s Ice Age, where he introduced an ingeniously simple theme elastic enough to express whimsy, danger, sorrow, nostalgia… whatever was called for. The device was effective in Ice Age because the film had a meaty story packed with a wide range of emotion. With The Cat In The Hat, Newman is not so lucky.

The non-stop frenetic pacing, the lack of substance, the meandering tangents that fail to add up to anything… all gripes that apply both to the film and its music. None of this is Newman’s fault, really, but it’s something that anyone considering shelling out $18 bucks for the CD should know about beforehand. That great main title never pays off on its promise.

Original Score Composed and Conducted by David Newman; Orchestrated by Greg Jamrok and Andrew Kinney; Recorded and Mixed by Bruce Botnick; Music by Marc Shaiman; Lyrics by Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman (8,16); Score Produced by David Newman; Availability: In print; Label (Catalogue): Decca Records, (B000161002); Release Date: November 18, 2003

01. Main Title – The Kids (8′07)
02. Getting Better – Performed by Smash Mouth (2′24)
03. The Cat (3′50)
04. Two Things / Couch Jumping / Leaky Crate (5′16)
05. Military Academy Seduction (3′02)
06. Mrs. Kwan – Mom Leaves (2′12)
07. Surfer Cat – The Phunometer (2′23)
08. Fun, Fun, Fun (2′38)
Music by Marc Shaiman
Lyrics by Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman
Performed by Mike Myers
09. The Contract (1′53)
10. Oven Explodes / Clean Up This Mess (1′36)
11. Things Wreck the House (2′52)
12. Larry the Slob (3′10)
13. Birthday Party (2′11)
14. S.L.O.W. Drive (2′32)
15. Rescuing Nevens (4′27)
16. Clean Up (0′22)
Music by Marc Shaiman
Lyrics by Scott Wittman & Marc Shaiman
Performed by Mike Myers

Total Playing Time: 49′02