Mee-ouch: You've Never Known Pain Like 'Cats'

In an age when pretty much every film is, “(literally) the worst thing ever,” to someone, somewhere, it takes a special kind of terrible for the internet to actually unite and agree on a movie’s horribleness. In this case, the film is Cats, which, if you believe in a God, will have you doubting your faith, while non-believers will find themselves praying for salvation.

The Story

Based on the long-running Andrew Lloyd Webber (The Phantom of the Opera) stage musical of the same name (itself derived from a T.S. Elliot poetry collection), Cats tells the story of a group of felines known as the “Jellicles”, who take a stray (Francesa Hayward) named Victoria under their wing. The Jellicles are preparing for their annual Jellicle Ball, a ceremony where cats vie for the honor of being selected to go to the Heaviside Layer. Among them are the disgraced Grizabella (Jeniffer Hudson, Dreamgirls), the magical Mr. Mistoffelees (Laurie Davidson, The Good Liar), and Gus (Ian McKellen, X-Men), an old theater cat. Presided over by Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench, Skyfall), the bulk of the ball (and film) is made up of the aforementioned cats (and many more) introducing themselves and their personalities in song, while known criminal and troublemaker Macavity (Idris Elba, Avengers: Infinity War) plots to win the contest.

Who is responsible for this?

Cats is the latest effort from director Tom Hooper (The Danish Girl), whose Les Misérables (2012) seemed to herald the return of the star-studded, big-budget Hollywood musicals of yesteryear. While that film had its questionable elements (not the least of which was Russel Crowe’s “singing”), it was generally positively reviewed, and eventually went on to score three Academy Awards (out of eight nominations).

Here, Hooper seems to have either bought into his own press or gotten drunk on the clout his award-winning efforts have afforded him. To paraphrase an actual disaster movie (as opposed to a disaster of a movie), Cats represents the epitome of a filmmaker so convinced that he could do a thing (like say, putting CGI fur on human actors), he never stopped to consider whether or not he should.

The horror, the horror

Representing an unholy cross between nightmare fuel and cringe-fest, Cats has its A-list stars prancing, twisting, and cavorting as the most terrifying on-screen felines since Mike Myers (Austin Powers) in The Cat in the Hat (2003). But for a thin sheen of CGI fur, the actors (aside from Dench and Hudson) appear essentially nude, reduced to fetishized mascots belting out classic show tunes. Words have not been invented to describe the existential horror that is Judi Dench raising her leg to lick her crotch, save to say that this writer is no longer the same person he was before entering the theater. And let’s not go into the madness of Jennyanydots’ (Rebel Wilson) unzipping her fur, or the white patches denoting black cat Bustopher’s (James Corden) otherwise anonymous nipples.

Identity Crisis

By far, the most frustrating aspect (aside from why in the name of sanity it was made) is the film’s inability to commit to what sort of movie it is. Much like the recent The Lion King remake, Cats isn’t sure if it’s a pure cartoon, a movie about cartoon animals existing in the real world, or real animals existing against a cartoon backdrop. The film tries to have it every which way by taking place in a recognizable (if poorly-rendered) London, yet populating it almost exclusively with musically-inclined mutants who resemble cats in only the very broadest of senses.

While the realities of stage production necessitated that characters be represented by actors in fanciful costumes, there is no excuse for the human-feline monstrosities that this film tries to pass of as, well, cats. All things considered, Hooper should have just put the play’s stylized costumes on the big screen, or even gone with fully-CGI cats to immerse us in the world of the Jellicles, rather than the affronts to God, Man, and aesthetics we are presented with here. In refusing to pick any sort of coherent treatment for the material, Cats is an assault on the senses, vying for your attention in all the worst ways.

Which brings us to the questions.

Whys and Wherefores

Why do some cats have clothes, while others don’t? Is Judi Dench’s coat meant to represent Deuteronomy’s actual fur, or did she not feel like wearing her green screen suit that day? Where are the jellicles’ genitals? Do stilettos actually help with cats’ balance? Is attention-starved Bombalurina the role Taylor Swift was born to play?

And just how big are these cats supposed to be? Even if one were to accept that they live in a world where humans all managed to die off simultaneously, it’s harder to accept the scale issues that see main characters shrink and grow in size as the script requires. One minute, they’ll be at eye-level with doorknobs, the next, cutlery either fits up their sleeves or are as big as baseball bats, while things like dice are the size of oven toasters.

Forget answers, the questions alone may drive one to madness.

Adapting the Musical

One of the longest-running plays of all time, in addition to its status as the progenitor of the modern blockbuster stage musical, Cats was always going to be difficult –if not impossible– to realize on the big screen. Even Steven Spielberg (listed here as a producer) struggled for years; between the main plot of cats competing to get to cat heaven, overly straightforward structure (it really is mostly cats introducing themselves and their personalities in song), and heavy reliance on dance over dialogue to convey its narrative, changes had to be made.

Aside from Deutoronomy’s casting (ie. going the James Bond franchise’s route of deciding that having Judi Dench around will only make things better), some of the major adjustments include restructuring the musical to give it a more traditional plot structure. As such, Victoria is less of a glorified extra and (essentially) elevated to our main protagonist, while Grizabella’s disgrace is fleshed out, with Macavity playing pimp/drug pusher to her former whore. Even Taylor Swift’s Bombalurina, who hated Macavity in the play, has been recast as one of his accomplices, but don’t worry – by the time she appears onscreen, you’ll either have walked out already or just given up trying to figure this movie out entirely.

Song and Dance Show

But what about the important stuff? This is a musical, after all. Creepy cat people, Rebel Wilson gobbling human cockroaches (don’t ask), and mice played by human children (ditto) aside, is the Cats movie hold up as a musical? If you came hoping to see some of the exquisite choreography the show is renowned for, the answer is yes and no. As a member of the Royal Ballet, Hayward is an undoubtedly talented ballerina, but Hooper’s tendency to shoot things up close and personal works against her (and many of the film’s dancers) over the course of the film. Hooper’s approach here resembles that of an incompetent action movie director, as he uses quick cuts and close ups to obliterate many a sequence, robbing the choreography (by Broadway’s Hamilton and In the Heights’ Andy Blankenbuehler) of its rhythm, flow, and nuance.

On the music front, the soundtrack is largely faithful to the source material, with two standouts, the first being Hudson’s rendition of “Memory”. Much as he did for Anne Hathaway’s memorable “I Dreamed a Dream” in Les Misérables, Hooper keeps his camera trained on his star, her character’s world-weary emotions raw and palpable, off-putting CGI be damned. Don’t get me wrong – Grizabella’s storyline is still a mess, with her melodramatic, mopey character popping in and out of the film at random, but Hudson knocks this iconic tune out of the park.

The other standout, surprisingly is the Swift and Lloyd Webber collaboration that plays over the end credits, “Beautiful Ghosts”. While not on the caliber of “Memory”, it is a largely decent companion piece to the film’s overall themes and narrative. Either out of respect or as a result of Lloyd Webber’s influence, Swift holds her cloying impulses in check to deliver a moving, radio-friendly piece which inoffensively reminds people that Star Wars isn’t the only thing in cinemas this month.

The Bottom Line

Hollywood is notorious for being a town where one is only as good as their last project. While veterans like Dench, McKellen, and Elba should have no problem getting future projects, and Taylor Swift is Taylor Swift, it’s hard to imagine the same sort of leeway being applied to director Tom Hooper. If perchance his career rebounds after this colossal flop, nine lives may not be anywhere near enough for audiences to forget the time he unleashed this cinematic hate crime on the world.

Of course, we could be looking at this in entirely the wrong way – maybe he’s a dog person.

Were you unfortunate enough to catch ‘Cats’ on the big screen? Was it really as bad as people say it is? Tell us what you think in the comments!