Cats (2019)
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Cats Movie Review
Cats is a 2019 musical fantasy film directed by Tom Hooper and starring James Corden, Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson and so many more. It’s of course a giant furry mess.
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“I judge a cat by its soul“
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This movie was destroyed, utterly ravaged by the critics and especially the audiences. And I do agree that it’s a bad movie, but I would not call it terrible by any stretch of the imagination. Again, this is the case of everybody making claims that it’s the worst movie ever just for the sake of being cool or funny when in reality this is not even the worst film of the year. That title goes to Disney’s most pointless remake so far.
Let’s first talk about this plot. Because yes, this stage musical apparently has a story. It follows a tribe of cats (cat-people, cat beings, cat cult? Who the hell knows?!) who must decide which one of them will descend to some sort of heaven for cats. If it sounds incredibly, creepily cultish, it’s because that’s what it basically is. I constantly had an unmistakable feeling that somebody was going to be ritualistically sacrificed, and it was simultaneously hilarious and disturbing.
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Undeniably, I was intrigued to say the least. I saw some potential here, and I definitely found its narrative ideas, especially its fantasy elements fascinating. But the movie never at all gave any answers to any of its imposed questions as it just rushed through all of them, and we ended up with a plotless movie that has only a semblance of storyline, and that’s pretty much it.
This movie has its strengths. One of them is the acting. This ensemble is amazing as it has so many great actors and actresses that it’s crazy how they all accepted to be here. Even crazier is how everybody did a great job in their roles. I have to commend each one of them for their strong commitment, but on the other hand, that was also a part of the problem – they were so devoted and serious in a sometimes laughably bad scenario that the end result is both amusing and sad.
Judi Dench committed the most so it was especially sad seeing her really act here. Jennifer Hudson stole the show in the singing department and was just so emotive and wonderful. James Corden and Rebel Wilson are both usually funny, but here they were not, and instead were super annoying. Idris Elba as Macavity clearly stole the show from everyone else in a delightfully campy, theatrical villain role.
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Cats is one of the most famous musicals of all time owing to its impressive soundtrack, and here truly that is the best reason to see the film. The songs are uniformly excellent, at least the best of them as some are quiet forgettable. Memory is undeniably emotional and soaring and powerful, Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat is a whole lot of energetic fun that is so damn catchy and Mr. Mistoffelees is incredibly entertaining and memorable. All three are terrific, but again they originate from the stage musical so they aren’t original, but the renditions are solid.
But most of these Cats songs are about characters being described to the audience, and the ending even includes the character talking to the audience. So clearly this was meant for the stage and not the big screen, and obviously the animation medium was the only suitable alternative. But this live-action medium was all wrong as the CGI is so not good, and they should have chosen the costume route instead. Some of the CGI is unfinished, and though mostly solid, it was such a bad choice in the first place. I did really appreciate the strong production design throughout as a great standout, but otherwise the movie did not look cinematic enough and it was miscalculated in every single area.
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Cats is an admirable failure. This exceedingly strange furball of a movie is quite intriguing in its plot, but barely explained enough for it to work. Instead, it makes you think that these crazy cats are in some kind of dangerous cult, and that was amusingly disturbing. The soundtrack is terrific with some songs being very catchy and memorable, and all of these renditions are strong and so well sung. Each and every actor from this impressive ensemble admittedly did a good job and they truly did commit, but that also made it odd and inherently sad. The production design is terrific, but the CGI was a bad miscalculation, and they should have gone the costume route instead. The entire story and format are obviously intended more for the animation medium, and I hope they go in that direction someday. Overall, Cats is a bad movie, but it’s far from disastrous as many have so theatrically proclaimed it to be.
