By this point you should've heard about how disastrous this movie was. Now it's my turn to review this cinematic disasterpiece. Here's my review of Cats (2019).
When I was little, I would always listen to my mom's music box that sat on her dresser. In that music box, there was a small dancer dancing to "Memories" from Cats, the fourth longest running Broadway musical and sixth longest running West End musical. I've known about the existence of Cats for a while because of that music box, but I've never actually known about the plot or any of the elements behind the concept of the musical. I've also known that there have been talks of film developments of the popular musical for 30 plus years, including an animated film by Steven Spielberg. And why wouldn't there be, this musical has raked in billions of dollars worldwide. In 2013, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the creative wizard behind this and many other successful musicals, announced that Universal had purchased the film rights and were in active development in getting the movie made. Tom Hooper, Academy Award director of The King's Speech (this fact will be important later), was brought aboard to direct in 2016. It seemed like finally, FINALLY, the pieces were set in place to make this long-awaited film adaptation of Cats. Then THAT trailer dropped and all hell broke loose. Universal essentially dropped a trailer to an unfinished product and no one was having it (just check that like to dislike ratio). Everyone, including myself, was saying how shoddy and unnerving the CGI looked. Universal and Hooper scrambled to touch up the CGI in order to keep its Christmas release date. Even with the "touch ups", the final product was something that should've been thrown into the litter box before it was ever released and the box office numbers really illustrate that notion. Before I really dive in, and trust me there's a LOT to unpack, let me talk about what I liked first, which isn't much honestly. Some of the choreography is truly spectacular and I think it helps that a lot of the cast (no, not you Rebel Wilson) are professionally trained dancers. Francesca Hayward (Victoria), for instance, is one of the principal dancers for the Royal Ballet, as is Steven McRae (Skimbleshanks). Most of the music, originally written for the stage musical, is admittedly pretty catchy (that first song is still stuck in my head), but of course the Broadway recordings are considerably better than the movie recordings. Jennifer Hudson absolutely delivers on that rendition of "Memories", the climax of the entire movie. I liked the new song "Beautiful Ghosts" that Taylor Swift wrote for the movie, plus it solidifies the fact that Swift should rightfully be called one of the best modern day songwriters. However, the reason why it was written is pretty obvious: to win or at least be nominated for an Academy Award. While I do think it's considerably better than other efforts that were written for the same reason (looking at you "Speechless" from Aladdin), the whole reasoning behind it still rubs me the wrong way. Now on to the bad stuff: literally everything else in the movie. As I stated before, I never knew what the actual plot of the musical was, and what I've come to realize is that the plot is very thin. The central story is that the jellicle cats have a jellicle ball to choose a jellicle cat that will be chosen to go to the Heaviside Layer, or basically the afterlife. And while that seems to make sense (just don't ask me what a jellicle cat is because I have no idea), the road to get to the end doesn't. The whole story is just comprised of one cat singing a song about something, that cat disappearing, and then another cat sings another song, that cat disappearing, then rinse and repeat. The main plot gets buried in all these unnecessary musical numbers and twists and turns that ultimately lead to nothing and don't further the story whatsoever. It frustrated me so much that I ended up looking up the original musical on Wikipedia, only to learn that, for the most part, this is the plot of the musical. Maybe the story works well on Broadway and West End, but it does not translate well on screen. Also, this movie seems like it should end at three different points, one of which is just Judi Dench's Old Deuteronomy staring directly at you through the screen and telling you how you should address cats. For instance, you shouldn't address cats as dogs, as if we didn't know the difference between cats and dogs? It's very discomforting and confusing and seems like it shouldn't even be there, but lo and behold, it's actually how the stage production ends as well. Again, how was this the fourth longest running show on Broadway? The main character, or whom I guess is the main cat, is Victoria, but all she does is go from one cat who sings a song to another cat who sings a song. She gets no character development, at least not really. We don't really learn anything about her, except I guess a little bit from the song "Beautiful Ghosts". In fact, none of the characters get any sort of character development throughout the course of the movie. I get attached to approximately 0 of the cats. If any of them died, which they don't, I wouldn't have shed a single tear. In fact, if some of the characters were completely be cut from the movie it would not change the outcome of the movie. That's how superfluous 90% of the characters are in the context of the film (and I guess to the same extent the musical itself). I guess the musical is not supposed to be an in depth character study, but it would be nice if the characters, ya know, mattered. But the fact of the matter is that they don't. You could cut out (and I did not make up any of these names) Jennyanydots or Rum Tum Tugger or Bustopher Jones or Bomburella and you could get the same exact results. Another issue is that the singing from the main cast, aside from Jennifer Hudson, is just bad. Francesca Hayward isn't bad admittedly, but her voice is a little thin. But other than that, Sir Ian McKellan and Dame Judi Dench, while wonderful actors in their own right, should never be allowed to sing. Jason Derulo and Taylor Swift sing in an awful half British accent for one song each and then pretty much disappear for the rest of the movie. James Corden isn't awful but isn't great and then Rebel Wilson isn't great at all. Idris Elba kinda sings but doesn't really. Which leaves Jennifer Hudson as the only great singer in the main cast. Some members of the general cast are actually pretty decent, but the fact is that the majority of biggest numbers belong to the main cast and unfortunately they're just not up to task in accomplishing one of the main points of a musical: to sing a song well and really sell it. Except of course Jennifer Hudson. Also, quick side note, whoever casted Rebel Wilson and James Corden in this movie should be fired immediately. For God's sakes, they are literally given time to riff and make jokes (because haha they're funny right), but surprise none of it is funny or necessary for that matter. James Corden literally stops in the middle of a song for like a whole minute just to make a fat joke because comedy I guess. Rebel Wilson says "don't mess with a crazy cat lady" which made me actually groan. Any time they showed up, which thankfully wasn't a lot, I rolled my eyes. I just do not believe that Tom Hooper and Andrew Lloyd Webber sat in a room and were like "oh yeah, these jokes will really elevate the movie". Another glaring issue is that the CGI is so unnatural and unpleasant. The CGI, which includes "state of the art digital fur" that was supposed to impress everyone, just makes the characters come off as creepy and unnerving. Double that with the fact that all of the cats still have human hands and it resembles more uncanny valley than anything else. What were they trying to accomplish with this? Were they thinking that this was going to dazzle us, the audience? It honestly would've just been better if they had the cast dress up in cat costumes like the Broadway/West End adaptation. At least then it would've seemed more in line with the actual stage production and that way we wouldn't have gotten this nightmare fuel. Speaking of the audience, just who was this movie's target audience? I can't think of a single child or teenager who thinks to themselves on the regular "man I really wish there was a movie right now where I could watch a strange human-like cat creature tap dance". Was this for the older Broadway folks who saw Cats back in the 80's and 90's, only to be horrified by this frightening CGI induced fever dream? This doesn't seem like a movie that millennials or even 30 year old Broadway/musical lovers would eat up or something that parents would willingly take their children to see. In fact, this seems like a movie that no one would want to see, which was proven by the poor box office returns. Universal tried so hard to make it a Christmas release, expecting a large crowd for the Christmas holiday weekend, and it spectacularly backfired. Point is that this movie panders to an audience that simply does not exist anymore. If they had made the movie more like the actual stage production then maybe there would've been at least a few interested parties, but alas the final product exists in an empty void where no one cares. The truth is Tom Hooper has proven himself to be a capable director. He deservedly won an Academy Award for directing for The King's Speech (2010), which is a great movie. He did an admirable job with helming Les Miserables (2012), albeit there are a few issues. He directed the excellent The Danish Girl (2015) with Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander. So it baffles me he ended up with this perplexing result. He had all the resources at his hands, including the involvement of the creator himself Andrew Lloyd Webber. He was given full creative freedom over the film. He definitely had the money and Universal's full support. Sure, some of the casting was questionable, but even still there is no excuse in how awful this film turned out. I know many directors have had a dud here or there, but this stinker was a hell of an expensive one and honestly the blame should fall on Hooper. While Cats does have very few positives, the overwhelming amount of negatives far outweigh it. While the stage production definitely lives in a bizarro world and I don't really understand how it lasted for as long as it did (1982-2000), Tom Hooper's disastrous outcome was not even close to capturing whatever magic Broadway was capable of providing. I gotta admit though, this is unintentional comedy gold. Rating: 1.5/10
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AuthorBuster Bigelow: 30 year old lover of movies, cinema, and music. Whether you agree or disagree with my reviews, I'd love to hear what you think in the comments! Archives
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