Movie Reaction: Cats

Formula: Cats & Dogs - Dogs

Um...sure...OK. That was something.

For months, Cats has been the most perversely anticipated movie coming to theaters. It's based on the enormously successful Broadway show that had a reputation already. It's a weird show from everything I've gathered. Yet, for all the jokes people made about the costumes or silly plot, it is one of the most successful shows in history. Within seconds of watching the trailer for Tom Hooper's film adaptation, you could tell it was making some bold choices. Once the film was finally screened, it seemed to confirm every fear people had. Now, it's become a critical punching bag, producing some of the most intensely negative reviews I've ever seen.

Having finally seen the movie, I get why. Cats is a bad movie. It's far from the worst thing I've ever seen though. In fact, I was hooked for most of the movie (not to be confused with enjoyment). The hyperbolic description I'm going to give the movie is that it's the most bafflingly flawed movie I've ever seen.

I should give some context first. Cats is a musical about London street cats preparing for a competition known as the Jellicle Ball. The winner of the ball gets to go to the Heaviside Layer which is like going to heaven or being reincarnated. All you really need to know is that all the cats want to get picked. Almost the entire plot of the movie is getting a song and dance introduction for all of the cats before a winner is chosen. So, the story isn't very cinematic to begin with. Then, nearly every choice Hooper makes for the movie on top of that is both bold and misguided.

This movie exists in a motion-capture performance "uncanny valley". Each actor is CGI animated to have cat features and fur. By trying to make the cat features too realistic, it actually makes the actors deeply unsettling to look at. The actors really commit to the sly cat movements. Paired with the unnerving animation, it's very silly. I didn't hate the performances. I just couldn't take them seriously. No one stuck out one way or the other, although I expect this will be the kind of movie where everyone will insist on a different favorite performance. Occasionally, the movie acts like it's in on the joke. Someone like Rebel Wilson will make a groan-worthy cat pun, but those didn't even earn polite chuckles from my theater audience.

This is a weirdly lifeless movie. The songs had no energy to them. Most movie musicals try to overpower the audience with the songs. Cats makes a conscious decision not to. It was like they were put on a decibel restriction. The in-between moments feel dead. The best comparison I came come up with is, it's like when you get to the end of a level on a video game, realize you forgot to pick up an item earlier in the level, and have to go back into all the rooms that you've already beat. Those rooms you walk through with not enemies or item and a checked-out score are the in-between scenes of Cats. When each songs end, you can virtually hear the other cats awkwardly say, "Well...that happened." It's a movie that I'm more likely to sleep through than walk out of.

Still, I kind of love the big swings the movie is taking. I can almost see the version of the movie Tom Hooper was trying to make. For a couple minutes here and there, I really was transfixed by what the movie is doing. It had a clear vision of the world. The way the characters move around can be hypnotic. If nothing else, I came away from the movie incredibly curious to see what a proper stage production of this would look like.

I'm pretty annoyed by the performative jeers being thrown at this movie. People are coming into it with claws out (sorry). I won't say it's not that bad. I just hate seeing something that took so many risks getting lambasted. If people want to know why studios don't take as many risks anymore, the public reaction to Cats is why. Please, don't see the movie to ridicule it. Just don't see it.

Movie Theater LVP: One really odd decision the movie made still confuses me. Sometime around Jennifer Hudson's first song, the music mixed in the sound of a baby crying for almost the entire rest of the movie. Not only that. By the last act of the film, they added the sound of another restless child walking around and sighing. The speakers in my movie theater were really good too, because they made it sound like it was coming from this woman sitting in the front row with her baby and other small children. It's a shame, because any time the movie got anywhere close to putting me under its spell, the sound of the baby's cries snapped me out of it.Oh well. I guess it's not like it was ruining a good movie.

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend