Have you caught up with "Cats" on streaming yet?
Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 3:00PM by Eric Blume
While many Americans are talking about their life in terms of Before and After the Pandemic, I'm now talking about my life in terms of Before and After watching Cats the movie. The much-maligned Tom Hooper musical opus is currently available on iTunes and Amazon, so I felt I should give it a shot after all the chatter, here, and elsewhere. But beware, kind viewer: once you've seen this movie, there is no coming back.
Preface that I am not a "Cats" hater (or even a cats hater...they're not dogs, but that's not their fault). I saw the almost-original Broadway production back when it was all the rage, so I have a tender spot for it in my heart...
Of course, even at its best, "Cats" the stage show is preposterous and probably shouldn't exist. To be generous, the show has some catchy tunes, Broadway razzle-dazzle, and some quite glorious choreography. The world didn't need a movie version but perhaps (perhaps!?!) it could have worked in the hands of a filmmaker who leaned into the bravado of its showmanship, or who had a feel for its kitsch and panache.
But what Tom Hooper does with "Cats" defies words. It's tough to say what's worst about how he handles this material. Could it be his staggering literal-mindedness? Could it be the occasional thuddening attempt at comedy? Could it be the grossly-misjudged sense of scale in the design? Could it be his directing of all the young dancer-actors to play in community-theater earnestness? Indeed, Hooper makes Cats is even MORE bizarre than the original material. Most of the movie generates a feeling of horror and nausea where you truly cannot believe you're seeing what you're seeing.
Ian McKellan and Judi Dench borderline-escape with their legend intact, but almost every other actor does embarrassing work. Both James Corden and Rebel Wilson, in particular, should have to do a long term in Acting Jail for their painfully unfunny physical "comedy".
And you can't even say, "well, the singing and the dancing are good!". Hooper takes one genuinely joyful number, "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" and literally takes the musicality out of it. Instead the song is done in a weird patter-whisper and is robbed of its rollicking orchestration, immediately DOA... and then it keeps going! Jennifer Hudson, a great singer and bad actress, uses "Memory" to remind us that she is a great singer and bad actress; her material is all "well-sung" in a snotty, dour tone that misses any chance at either light tragedy or exultation. And while Hooper cuts almost all of the dance out of the original production, what dance remains is terrible. It's a collection of faux-ballet mumbo-jumbo that has no artfulness or point-of-view or beauty.
This article brings me no pleasure to write. I went into Cats without cynicism. I love movie musicals and figured there'd be SOME joy in there somewhere. But wow. You spend a stretch of the movie wondering which drug you could be doing that would make it watchable. I mean, the best I can say about Cats the movie is that once you've seen it, you can never unsee it. Definitely spend your home isolation time with seven hours of a much better feline fiction, The Tiger King.
Reader Comments (23)
I think I'd rather be gang-raped than watch that film.
Oh my God, thevoid99, you're horrible (and apparently had no experience of being sexually assaulted. Or, if you have, you need some therapy to help you not project your traumatic experiences into the lives of other sufferers). This is not the medium for those comments.
On a lighter note..... interesting to have two alternate takes on the Netflix series right next to each other here at TFE.
These was a very funny article to read, however I'm not planning to watch the movie.
Every time i hear about these film makes me want to watch "The AristoCats" because i love movies, animation, jazz and cats.
Eric, even though most of what you say is true, I must admit I had a blast watching this!!! It's one of those films that's so committed to its wrongheaded concept and vision... and frankly, I would re-watch this one any day before I re-watched any of the blandly offensve Disney live-action remakes any day.
I also must admit that I think Beautiful Ghosts is a gorgeous song and it's the only moment in the film I felt genuinely worked (even if I didn't like Francesca Hayward's performance as a whole), and I was captivated by Taylor Swift's cameo as Bombalurina (you can see how comfortable she is as a performer through her rendition of the Macavity number).
Yes, on the whole, the film is definitely a failure, but I find it such a fascinating failure that I feel everyone should see it at least once, just to see how completely off the rails a film project can go.
I saw the movie in the theater and thought it was a mess- a very expensive mess which does not work as a fim
@Travis C.-You have no idea what pain is little boy.
"While many Americans are talking about their life in terms of Before and After the Pandemic..."
I guess in the rest of the world we're talking about our Easter holidays. What a shitty opening line.
While this whole movie was an abominiation (not, for me, a fun bad movie, just a boring bad movie) I thought the dancer Steven McRae as Skimbleshanks did a good job given the material, and that number was the best for me for it's transition from inside to outside via what seemed like a regular rooftop to the railways.
The size of the cats were still perplexing and illogical.
A cat is not, in fact, a dog.
the void99 is the worst person on this website. He also swears like a mynah bird. No contributor on this blog expresses their opinions with cuss words. They write eloquently and intelligently to bring about their ideas effectively.. Also news articles, when repeating offenders' cheap, dirty, vulgar remarks, use dashes or other means to illustrate terms effectively.
Peggy Sue, what a negative and disrespectful comment, and with such vague follow-up context.
How did this happen? I mean what excuses has Tom Hooper come up with. Did he say he liked how it turned out and that everyone else is wrong? The cast did some promotion right. Did they think it was going to be this poorly received? At least James and Rebel got an Oscar night gag out of it.
I'm with Richter Scale. Cats is a bad bad movie but I really enjoyed watching it aim for something even if it singularly failed to achieve it.
That said it's a wonderful write up from Eric. Thank you.
This article is a piece of shit. Too bad Nathaniel does't give a fuck anymore about his own site.
@EricB - Not at all, Peggy Sue is SO right. Most of the time, americans are very self-centered and many americans I've known accept it. These are fucked up times for all the world.
Peggy Sue and thevoid99 spouting trash that would get any other user reprimanded by Nathaniel in the comments and getting passes? Seems like any other day. (Apparently Peggy Sue is a personal friend of the website's creator/editor which is more egregious, friends don't let friends act a fool)
P.S. If this take on Cats bothers y'all so, then I'm not sure of what you thought of the near identical in tone and derisiveness that was almost literally every reviewers take on Cats.
Jeezus...the opening line of the article references America and Americans because that's where Cats' digital release happened. The writer wasn't trying to say that the rest of the world is doing peachy.. Did you actually believe he was, Peggy Sue? No, of course not. You just acting a damn fool.
Good lord, if a global pandemic can't even put an end to people "taking offense" to , perhaps poorly phrased, but ultimately innocuous statements like the opening line of this article, I guess nothing will.
What happened to civility? The comments on so many posts here are closer to harassment than simple disagreements. It really needs to stop.
Friendly reminder that Tom Hooper has an Oscar and David Fincher doesn't.
I am going to go for a positive spin. A Google hit on "hate comments" bring articles dating back to 2014. So this site was able to play on house money for 5 years now.
But seriously, we can all step back with the negative comments, ESPECIALLY towards a free site. ALL authors here owes us nothing, so criticism is especially strange.
Tyler and kin - Civility left when we saw the tacit approval of hateful or greatly negative comments by commenters who personally know the owner of the site or for some reason are above reproach, namely Peggy Sue and thevoid99, with the occasional Volvagia and 'Me'. /3rtful is mostly coldly critical, or a stats bot when Bates or Nick Davis are mentioned, but for the majority of his comments unfairly maligned.
Unfortunately the comment section is getting more & more ridiculous and actually really dumb (anoyingly snappy & bitchy just for the sake of putting something out there) by a view regular commenters, who for years where in top form (what happened to you guys ?? why constantly so frustrated ?) - that I'm actually for the first time considering leaving TFE ... as I thought this is a pool interesting diverse people with something to say - at the moment it has a vipers-nest-feel like a bad episode of POSE :-( - which is not definitely not my gusto - Nathaniel whats going on ?
The Academy shld've revoked Hooper's Oscar & give it to the rightful winner, Fincher!!