The untested director Bo Welch, trained as a production designer, tries out the tested formula of How the Grinch Stole Christmas: a sententious Dr. Seuss book, a sampling of voice-over recitations from the actual text ("Then something went bump. How that bump made them jump!"), and a major comedy star so impenetrably disguised in the title role that he might as well be doing nothing but dubbing. The major star in this instance is identified as Mike Myers, but if you were told that behind the cat suit, and behind the New Yawk accent, the camping, the burlesquing, was Nathan Lane, you'd be obliged to accept it without a murmur. Myers has occasion to do other accents as well, and the Scottish and Canadian are more recognizably him. The two-note falsetto laugh, on the other hand, might put you more in mind of Pee-wee Herman, helped along by the surrounding dollhouse townscape. Were it to put you in mind specifically of Pee-wee's Big Adventure, you would then have a useful guideline to gauge what's missing: originality, humanity, charm, modesty, innocence, things like that. With Alec Baldwin, Kelly Preston, Dakota Fanning, Spencer Breslin, and Sean Hayes. (2003) — Duncan Shepherd
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