Meow! Imagine if I loved this movie. Imagine if I had to write a review now defending my positive opinion after this movie has been bashed from pillar to post. I’d be like Brian on Family Guy discussing Cocktail; “…actually not a bad film. As classically structured cinema goes, Cocktail is one of the best films of its era.” But I can save being a contrarian for another day because I can safely say Cats is crap. Crap! Crap, crap, crap. What a chore! It has to be seen to be believed… but, you know, don’t go see it.
I have never seen any of the classic Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals (Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats) in any form, so this is quite the introduction. It’s going to be hard to know where the movie lets the original stage production of Cats down and where Cats simply does not thrill me as a musical. Usually, I go a good musical – Chicago, and all that jazz, Rent, The Wizard of Oz, Guys and Dolls etc. I had Frozen II top of my favourites list of last year, praising the music. And yes, I know technically Cats came out in 2019, but I’ve always considered movies that premier on Boxing Day in Australia fair game in the new year, because there’s not always enough time to see all the movies that come out in the final week of the year, so go with me on this. Cats is still in cinemas in 2020, so I’m reviewing it in 2020.
Cats boasts an all-star cast including Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Rebel Wilson, James Corden, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift and “introducing” Francesca Hayward; they’re all CGI cat-creatures who come together on this special night of the year to perform for a chance to be named the ‘Jellicle Choice’. Cats is directed by Tom Hooper.
I can’t say I have any problem with the technical aspect of CGI that has gone into Cats, but there’s something about singing and dancing naked human-cat hybrids that is unsettling. It’s an interesting phenomenon actually; I keep thinking about the facial expressions on hand-drawn animated animal characters, like that in The Lion King, and the detailed CGI renderings of creatures like the Na’vi in Avatar, and how effortlessly we can tolerate them. Maybe it’s a matter of our eyes adjusting to new technology, and in 5 years, we might look back at Cats and consider it tame. There’s something ultra-realistic and implausible happening with these cats at the same time that scrambles my brain. The characters that wear clothing are so much easier to comprehend, but then it doesn’t make sense that they’re wearing clothes within the serious cat-world that this movie is trying to create. I’m sure lovers of Cats have always dreamed about being able to create realistic-looking cat personas for a big onscreen extravaganza, so I don’t begrudge them for trying.
With my mind already struggling to make sense of these cats, the first act of this movie is a real assault on the eyes, with quick perspective-changing edits, using shots that feel like they come from a camera on a bungee cord. I’m sure the effect is intended to immerse us in the action, but it’s really unpleasant. I don’t want to feel like I’m performing the acrobatics along with the cats; I’ve come to watch. At times, the camera was so shaky that I kept waiting for Jason Bourne to appear, chasing some guy down an alley. You would think the sets and the performances, which are entertaining, should be the focal point of the scenes, but the camera doesn’t stay still long enough to properly enjoy them, for the longest time. Eventually, around the time Francesca Hayward-cat sings about “beautiful ghosts”, I settled in because the camera was finally holding still. The camerawork honestly comes across as amateur and rushed, like the movie is coming to us in real time; the moviemakers should have taken the time to figure out how to appropriately position the camera for more appealing shots.
There’s probably about twenty minutes of straight singing before any characters speak – I like songs in musicals, but I like my songs to inform the story, not tell the story. I feel like songs are great to flesh out an emotion or an idea that a show wants to express at a certain moment, but they are not good for helping an audience connect with character. Cats exemplifies this belief, especially when the songs introduce a bunch of words I’ve never heard… what’s are “jellicle” and “gumbie” cats? (a bit of digging tells me that they are nonsense words from T.S. Elliot poems which Andrew Lloyd Weber used as inspiration for Cats). I would have loved the movie to slow down and explain what it was talking about, give some indication of the direction that the plot or even setup the songs so we could understand them; I had no idea what the winner of the grand ball was going to receive until they were jet-setting across the sky. And I especially needed to understand what was happening in the movie if Judy Dench was going to proudly lecture us at the end on how we should all now know the proper way to raise a cat; should I have been taking notes? Instead, the movie is literally a series of introductory songs for each of its many characters. I was uninvested, and I got to a point where I created a mental list of what I thought the movie still had to cover before it could wrap up; then I realised we hadn’t seen Taylor Swift yet, and her introductory song was going to add to the runtime – oh boy ☹.
Ian McKellen is enjoyable. I also think Francesca Hayward-cat and our narrator cat, played by Robbie Fairchild, are very good. Jennifer Hudson comes out guns blazing, and I’m disappointed for her that she isn’t in a better movie. She cannot be criticised for her contribution, although she’s got the effortless role of appearing miserable and left-out in this movie; I empathised with her. The James Corden-cat has just as hard a time following the movie as we do; announcing he is sensitive about his weight amidst singing a song about being a proud fat cat, and recalling that Idris Elba-cat has called him “Cat in Spats” twice, when my count was up to three.
Anyway, I guess all I’m trying to say is now I’m attracted to alien-cats. That’s my take-away – an unsettling and boring movie that’s left me with a weird fetish for cat women. They’re furry, with whiskers and waggly tails… and I would, I so would. It’s got to be the nude expressionism, and what I am adamant are CGI-enhanced lips that has got me. And it’s not just the male gaze; there’s a majestic hair-sheltered Idris Elba-cat for the ladies to gawk at as well; once he drops his coat, he’s basically dancing in the nud’. At times you remind yourself that you’re watching approximations of real cats, and you’re watching them rub their butts on crockery, and form packs around the streets of London – if there were really that many cats congregated on the Trafalgar Square Lions, it would be so unsettling (there’s that word again; unsettling). Also, it’s established when Francesca Hayward-cat goes to kiss the Magician-cat (Laurie Davidson) that cats don’t use lips, they nudge heads, because that’s what cats do. Then Francesca Hayward-cat head-nudges a few of the other cats, including Judi Dench-cat so…. best Judi Dench lesbian kiss ever? I’m giving Cats a 0.5 for the sets mostly, the dancing and the effort that’s gone into the CGI. Try watching Cats and not going home to swear at your cat.
0.5
Leave a Reply