Movie review: Cats

The critical kicking dished out to the musical fantasy Cats seems more about delivering a stockpiled arsenal of cat-based puns.

Cries that the humanoid felines look nightmarish feel willfully pedantic for the sake of it.

This film has so much more wrong with it beyond ropey CGI.

Yet, appearing to justify the brickbats is the announcement that an updated version of the film will be distributed with improved effects. Cats is getting a patch.

I was okay with the overall look of the cats. 

I could live with the inconsistency regarding clothes, including the one cat (played by Rebel Wilson) who peels off her fur to reveal a sparkly dress and more fur underneath. 

I could bear the disregard for proportions so that the same cat can switch from mouse-sized to man-sized from scene to scene.

Or they would have been more forgivable if the film didn’t take itself so seriously. Cats attitude is that you should be in awe of its presence (much like the animal itself, I suppose).

Cats’ main failing is the overwhelming hubris that assumes what works on stage works just as well on screen. 

Or indeed, because the stage musical has run successfully across four decades on Broadway and the West End with barely any plot, the film can be plot-free too, right?

It does not help that director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Miserables, The Danish Girl) has – yet again – gone for a very straightforward approach and you have to wonder if a live recording of the stage show would have been more effective.

On the live stage, an elaborate tap dance routine to emulate the rhythm of a train can be a marvel of skill.

On-screen, it’s just a shaky leg and some clacking sounds.

Likewise for any dance scenes featuring the ensemble cast.

Live, it's a tableau of movement and exertion. On-screen, it comes off as discombobulated star jumps.

The viewer is dumped into the world of Cats, following newly abandoned Victoria (Francesca Hayward).

She is surrounded by many cat people as she is told a cat has three names – and we never find out anything more about that.

From then on, it’s song after song (some staying far beyond their welcome), introducing cat after cat, for no reason other than to sing about themselves. 

The plot, which only really comes to matter halfway through, is that Judi Dench’s Old Deuteronomy (a queen among cats, naturally)  will choose a cat to go to the Heaviside Layer where they will be reborn into the life they wanted.

My thanks to Google for the details I struggled to pick up from the viewing.

So it becomes a singing contest as each cat tells the most tear-worthy sob story – very American Idol/The X Factor – hoping to be chosen.

But Idris Elba’s Macavity, who has magical transportation powers (no reason given), wants the prize for himself.

There's a premise there that's squandered to introduce more cats of no consequence.

The song that most people will know is Memory – and with good reason. It’s the only song that conveys any emotion. It’s also about the only tune to not include the word “cat” 80,000 times per verse.

From start to finish, the words "Jellicle cat" are used like it’s a common term. And they say it A LOT, over and over, leaving you bewildered as to whether they’re saying jelly cole, jellico, or jelly cull. Not that one has more meaning than the other.

The sound mix is way off, making it hard to work out what’s being sung. 

There are times when it’s simply unintelligible mouth sounds.

Robbie Fairchild acts as Victoria’s – and our – guide throughout but we barely get his name. (Turns out it’s Munkustrap. Thanks IMDb). 

Back to Memory. When it comes up, it’s so good it damns the rest of the film’s mediocrity.

Jennifer Hudson is Grizabella – a cat shunned by the others – and provides the one moment the film works.
She does not just belt it out, she channels it. She feels it. And we do too. Tears, snot and all.
Having heard the tune in variety shows for decades, Jennifer Hudson is the first singer to give real meaning to this song.

It’s a story in itself that sears through the CGI make-up.

Unfortunately, it comes late in the day.

I would hope that when they heard it, there was some realisation among the rest of the cast: “Oh, THAT’S how we’re meant to do it”.

Once Hudson lets rip, it becomes painfully clear just how flatly the other songs have been performed – just adding words to a tune.

The effects department must have been 'thrilled' at Hooper’s decision to film handheld, shake and all, then have to digitally stitch the cat skins to the actors.

It’s definitely a problem. There are moments when faces and heads move in different directions. The mice are the freakiest of all with their floating children’s faces. 

And when there are scenes of magic that require some special effects flair, Hooper shoots in such a basic way, you're given the type of effects you'd expect from a stage production, not a CGI-slathered movie.

To boil the issues down, this film went wrong the moment it was tasked to be a movie of the musical Cats, rather than a movie based on the musical Cats.

That said, Tom Hooper may just have created a cult classic. Cats is very close to a must-see movie, not in an enjoyable way but just to see how extraordinarily wrong it is.

Score: 1.5/5