Cats (2019) review

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, folks… I’m about to review what has easily been the most infamous film of 2019, the film adaptation of the long-running musical, Cats. The musical made its London debut in 1981, five years before composer Andrew Lloyd Webber unleashed his biggest smash hit on the world, The Phantom of the Opera, and was inspired by the 1939 collection of poems titled Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats written by T.S. Eliot. A year later, it would make its Broadway debut, and both versions of the show ended up being massive financial hits. To date, Cats is the fourth highest-grossing musical of all-time with a worldwide gross of over $2.8 billion, and it is widely regarded as the first ‘mega-musical’ AKA the theater equivalent of a cinematic blockbuster. Over the years, however, the overall reception towards the show has varied due to its many bizarre aspects, and sure enough, this mindset carried over to the announcement that a film adaptation was in the works as practically every major aspect of its production became a prime source of internet mockery. Sure, it was set to be directed by Tom Hooper, who had previously directed 2010’s Best Picture winner The King’s Speech and the 2012 adaptation of another legendary musical, Les Misérables, but the overall mixed reception towards the latter and the growing criticism of Hooper’s directorial trademarks didn’t help. And once the first trailer for the film was released, the internet recoiled at the sight of the bizarre project that was set to hit theaters which, when it ultimately did, was widely panned by critics and immediately regarded as one of the most disastrous films in recent memory. Thus, today we’ll be going over all the reasons why Cats is the utterly fascinating mess that it ends up being.

One night, a young white kitten named Victoria (Francesca Hayward) is abandoned by her owner on the streets of London. Immediately, she is approached by a group of alley cats who refer to themselves as ‘Jellicle’ cats. Through them, Victoria learns that tonight happens to be the biggest night of the year for the Jellicles, the Jellicle Ball. Every year, the Jellicles’ wise leader, Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench), selects one member of their tribe who will ascend to the mythical place known as the Heaviside Layer and be reborn. And so, Victoria and the rest of the Jellicles begin to witness some of the most prominent members of the tribe compete for this honor, which includes everyone from the bourgeois Bustopher Jones (James Corden) to the elderly theater performer Gus (Ian McKellen). At the same time, however, the Jellicles must also deal with the actions of the sinister Macavity (Idris Elba), who will stop at nothing to ensure that he’s the one who gets chosen. And really, folks… that’s about it for the plot. As I’m sure those in the theater community will agree, Cats sports the very definition of a bare-bones plot that’s basically just a series of vignettes in which new characters are introduced and they have their big solo numbers. And while I can’t say much about how this translates to the stage since I’ve admittedly haven’t seen Cats in its original musical form, I have the feeling that it works a lot better there than it does on film. Here, that kind of plot makes the whole thing quite repetitive and it also doesn’t help that the film speeds through the story at a surprisingly rapid pace, which means that there’s never a point where it slows down to let us properly fathom any of its utterly bizarre moments.

But, of course, the one thing that will forever define this film’s reputation is how it brings the story’s feline characters to life. Ever since its debut, the musical has always relied on elaborate costuming and makeup to accomplish this. But as for the film, it opted to go the CGI route and utilize motion-capture to turn its cast into cats. And as you might have guessed, this was the main reason why the film’s initial trailer ended up becoming so notorious as many felt that its CGI designs were one of the most blatant examples of imagery that falls into the uncanny valley. And while I personally never found these designs ‘scary’ like the rest of the internet regards them as (in a year which also saw that same description apply to the sight of Will Smith’s Genie in his traditional blue form and the initial cinematic design of Sonic the Hedgehog), even I can agree that this wasn’t the right way to go when it came to bringing Cats to the big screen. Simply put, practically all the big stars in the film get some incredibly unflattering CGI makeovers. And despite all the behind-the-scenes videos that emphasized how the production utilized some genuinely impressive larger-than-life sets, this is a very CGI-dominated film in general, which means that the weaker effects don’t just apply to the characters. However, given the various reports that came out after the film’s release, this is ultimately something that you can’t really fault the VFX artists for since it’s now been well-established that this film was beyond rushed and they had an incredibly tense relationship with director Tom Hooper. In fact, it was so rushed that the studio had to send out a new version of the film to theaters (during its opening weekend, no less) to fix some glaring visual effects errors, namely the appearance of Judi Dench’s wedding ring on her hand in certain shots. However, from what I’ve read (and based off the version of the film that I watched on VUDU), this ‘updated’ cut didn’t make any noticeable changes, which means that, yes, you can still see Judi Dench’s wedding ring on numerous occasions.

And yet, arguably the most ironic aspect of this film is that, despite all its visual shortcomings and its strict adherence to maintaining the overall weirdness of its source material, much of its star-studded cast is still fully committed to the bizarre antics that they end up partaking in. Going back to this film’s behind-the-scenes videos for a second, the overall vibe that you get from the cast in their various testimonials is that they genuinely wanted to be there, and as crazy as it may sound, this enthusiasm can be seen in a lot of their performances. Legends like Judi Dench and Ian McKellen give it their all and while she may have arguably been a bit young for the role of the withered glamour cat Grizabella, Jennifer Hudson still gives the musical’s most iconic number, ‘Memory’, the emotional powerhouse of a performance it deserves. In fact, Dench’s casting as a gender-swapped Old Deuteronomy is quite significant since she was originally cast as Grizabella in the original London production of the musical but had to drop out at the last minute when she tore her Achilles tendon during rehearsals. But remember what I said earlier about how this is basically just a series of vignettes that jump from character to character? Well, because of that, most of the characters in this film are basically relegated to minor cameos which, in this instance, ends up applying to the most prominent members of the ensemble such as McKellen, James Corden, and Taylor Swift as the flirtatious Bombalurina, just to name a few. Instead, the film tends to focus more on the story’s supporting players, namely the trio of Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild), Mr. Mistoffelees (Laurie Davidson), and Victoria, whose traditionally silent role in the musical is expanded upon to make her the main protagonist. However, the methods in which the film handles this change are rather mediocre and, at best, she just ends up being a generally passive audience surrogate. Thus, while I’m well aware that many have harped on Francesca Hayward’s performance in the role, this is ultimately another case like the VFX artists where you can’t really blame it on her since, to be perfectly frank, she didn’t have much to work with here.

So, yeah… as you might have guessed, there’s not a lot of positive things that I can say about this film. Now, granted, I’m not as repulsed by this film as the rest of the internet is, but it goes without saying that Cats is one of the strangest films to come out in recent years. Of course, a lot of this has to do with its questionable method of bringing the titular cats to life via CGI, especially since it’s now been made clear that the rushed production schedule that this film ended up having resulted in its effects feeling quite unfinished. At the same time, though, there’s also the matter of how this film ended up taking the musical that it's based on and doing almost nothing to try and work around its most bizarre aspects. Because of this, anybody who isn’t familiar with the musical going in will most likely be left completely and utterly dumbfounded by its strange and simplistic story. And yet, while this may seem like a case where it’d be more accessible to those who are fans of the musical, it seems like even that’s impossible (based on what I’ve heard) because of the radical changes that this film makes to both its plot and several of its musical numbers. It’s worth noting that the original plans for this film adaptation were to have it be an animated feature done by Steven Spielberg’s production company Amblin Entertainment’s animation division, Amblimation. And while this iteration of the project ultimately went nowhere when the division was shut down in 1997, it’s safe to say that this film probably would’ve worked a hell of a lot better had it been animated as originally intended.

Rating: 1.5/5