Cats (Review)
Cats Made Me Doubt the Existence of a Good and Omnipotent God.
First off, let me say that I love cats. Not the musical but the animal. I honestly knew nothing about the musical except that it’s about the animal I love. My only exposure was the nightmare-inducing trailer that came out before director Tom Hooper “revamped” the CGI for the film. Well, having seen the movie, I now know what Cats is about, and it will be seared into my memory forever whether I like it or not (spoiler alert: I don’t).
Normally, I like to give a synopsis of the films I watch with some shout outs to notable characters and actors in certain roles. With Cats, I honestly don’t want to force myself to wade through the muck it calls a plot. It centers around these things called jellicle cats, which sounds kind of specific and fancy. However, when you look up the word, it turns out it stems from an attempt by T.S. Eliot’s infant niece to say “dear little cat.” In the play and film apparently, it means a lot of things and absolutely nothing at the same time. Which is strangely appropriate because that’s pretty much how I felt about the movie. Basically, a bunch of cats get together for a cat version of American Idol to see which one gets a chance at reincarnation or something. It’s a lot of singing and dancing and in the end, one of them gets whisked away in a hot air balloon somewhere. Honestly, things are a little blurry since my mind is trying to protect me from the trauma that was this film.
Alright, so Cats isn’t all bad. At least relatively speaking. I suppose I should probably specify that by “all bad” I mean “not soul-crushing.” Hooper actually cast a few decent performers, most notably Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, and Francesca Hayward. They bring an air of legitimacy to the songs they’re given but, let’s be honest, making bad songs sound good are kind of their bread and butter. You might notice a few respectable actors in the cast as well, like Judi Dench, Ian McKellan, and Idris Elba. Sadly, their incredible talent only made the film more cringe-worthy as I felt a lot of “second-hand shame” for these talented thespians. In other words, I was embarrassed for them and watching them hiss and rub their faces on each other made me really uncomfortable. If nothing else can be said for Cats, it should go down as the film that the greatest number of big-name celebrities regret the most making in their career.
The visuals are probably the most upsetting thing about Cats. The sets are pretty impressive at first until you realize that proportions are apparently not a thing that exists in this hellscape. The characters seem to grow and shrink in proportion to the props and background. Objects never maintain a relative size and the CGI used on the actors actually makes it feel like the whole thing is a poorly done green-screen effect. Speaking of the CGI, Cats is a hellacious fever dream that seems neverending. Not only because, well, just look at the damn thing, but because the effects have all the grace of a glitchy video game cutscene (and I’m talking Playstation 2 at best). Most notably are the collars that every cat wears in the film. They seem to hover inches off the animal’s body as though magnetically repelled by their fur. It might sound nit-picky, but it becomes an irritating distraction early on. I’ve heard rumors that the studio is pushing for a visual effects nomination at the Oscars, which would be very disrespectful to the other films in the category.
Of course, Cats is a musical. I at least knew that going in and I actually enjoy musicals, especially the ones from yesteryear. Don’t worry, I’m not a musical snob, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to let this particular musical have it. There is literally one song that actually hung in my head after the credits rolled and that was the one performed by Jennifer Hudson. She has such a powerful, siren-esque voice that she could sing the phone book and it would probably get stuck in my head. The other songs seemed desperate to create rhyming verses, and I found the structure to be cumbersome and jarring. Then there was the actual music that sounded as though it was composed by a cat walking across a synthesizer. As someone who deals with cats walking across my keyboard as I try to write reviews, I can tell you this is not a good way to create “art.” Being a musical also means that there are plenty of dance numbers as well. Being a musical about cats means we get to watch people in unitards prance about in the kind of unnerving contemporary style that reminded me of the horrifying numbers in Suspiria (in so much that my mind felt as mutilated as the victims of the coven’s physical witchcraft).
Look, I know that Cats is a “classic.” However, as a film student and a critic, I’ve learned that the term “classic” is not synonymous with good. There are many classics out there that are excruciating to sit through, especially the ones championed by many film snobs. The same can be said for this cinematic nightmare. Even the small glimmers of “good” in it are only relative. The rest is like staring into a Lovecraftian void and feeling your mind recoil in horror as it struggles to comprehend the nightmare unfolding before you. I found Cats to be jaw-dropping in that I couldn’t help wondering why someone would do this to another living being. It’s a visceral movie in that my fight or flight reflex was triggered early and often. Long story short, Tom Hooper made his first legitimate horror movie with Cats and you should avoid it if you wish for your soul to remain untainted.
