"Cats" Review - Feline Sematary

After months of anticipation, it’s finally here. The film that became an instant sensation on the internet in how disastrous it looked. Funny enough is if you’re a musical geek like myself, you already know how catastrophic of a show it is. While I never saw the musical, my mom, my English teacher, and plenty of friends had told tales of this mysterious show about nothing but a cat cult explaining who they are. The soundtrack is beyond strange and unmemorable and the story contains not an ounce of plot or character development. Yet somehow, it is the 6th longest running broadway musical in history. Every day I wonder what kind of fan base kept this alive? China? Furies? Kinky people? That’s probably the biggest puzzlement of this entire phenomenon. But when one has a movie membership that gets you into so many movies, it’s kind of hard to avoid seeing this dumpster fire, especially if you know exactly what you’re getting. In fact, if you’re not a broadway fanatic or haven’t seen the movie, you don’t have any right to judge this mysterious piece of work, no matter how much you were horrified by the trailers.

After finally seeing “Cats”, I can tell you that yes, it is what you expect. I will levee forget the bursts of high screeched laugher from the two women next to me when the credits rolled. LOL! You can tell director Tom Hooper put his heart and soul into making this great for audiences through the cinematography, lighting, and set design. Hell, he didn’t even finish the effects until this weekend! But as the saying goes, you can’t polish a turd, and the direction they took with making these CGI human like cat monsters was only the 2nd best way to take on “Cats”. I honestly believe that this should’ve been 2-D animated. It wouldn’t have gotten rid of the story, but it would’ve had that Disney like magic that movies with animated animals like “The Aristocats” brought to the cinema. Instead, we get this uncanny live action would that once again proves if you want animals to do unrealistic actions, they should be hand-drawn (I’m looking at you too Lion King remake).

That’s not to say there’s people trying to put their hearts into this thing. Jennifer Hudson singing “Memory” is easily the highlight of this 100 minute journey while actors like Idris Elba, Jason Derulo, Judi Dench and James Corden also entertain with a delightful upbeat and sometimes scary manner. The choreography is smooth and sweet as if you’re on an ice skating rink, and the overall artistic vision is good enough to keep you on your toes the whole way though. I know it’s very strange to say, but remember, the musical is just actors in leotards singing to the audience and there’s no movie magic at all other than a few pyrotechnics. At least through a cinematic lens, you can see and appreciate more even if it’s not the horrendous human cats.

Was it as bad as I expected? Absolutely. Was it better than I expected? Surprisingly yes, but only by a little. It seemed to have good promise and magic to come with it, but when all is said and done, there’s nothing that can save this bizarre and lifeless story. I credit the great Andrew Lloyd Webber for lots of great pieces of theatre over the years. I’d rather not credit him for this. If Phantom of the Opera is his Hugh Jackman, Cats is his Russell Crowe. And we all know what we need to do when we see that name in musical theatre.

1.5 Nebs Down!