Film Review: CATS

Sexuality/Nudity Acceptable
Violence Acceptable
Vulgarity Acceptable
Anti-Catholic Philosophy Acceptable
I'm trying very hard to figure out a way to describe the experience of seeing CATS in the theater.

The best that I can do is say that it was like being inside a living nightmare.

I don't meant that it was frightening in the conventional sense.  But it was like being trapped in a dream where logic made less and less sense and it seemed as though you would never wake up and get back to your waking life.

What is CATS about?  I'm not quite sure it's about ANYTHING.

The actors are playing cats on the London street.  On this night a cat named Victoria (Francesca Howard) is abandoned on the streets where she encounters other cats like Mr. Mistoffelees (Laurie Davidson) and Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson).  These cats sing about how they are Jellicle cats and that tonight is the night of the Jellicle choice where Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench) will choose one of the cats to go to the Heaviside Layer and be reincarnated as a new Jellicle cat.

What is a Jellicle cat?

I have no idea.  And the movie never even bothers to explain it, even though the word "Jellicle" is used about a hundred times in the first few minutes.  I actually left the theater to go look up what the word meant because I thought I was missing something obvious that would help the whole movie make a little more sense.  It turns out that "Jellicle" is just a made up word by TS Elliot that really doesn't mean anything.   By the way, there are non-Jellicle cats in CATS and there is absolutely no way to tell the difference between a Jellicle and a non-Jellicle.

I imagine that you are supposed to turn off your brain and enjoy the music and the dancing spectacle.  But this doesn't work because director Tom Hooper does everything he can to make this movie a disgusting display.  There was a great deal of mockery of the cat special effects when the trailer dropped, and rightly so.  There is a principle in visual design called "The Uncanny Valley."  It refers to a phenomenon where if you make something non-human look more and more human our attraction to it grows until just before it looks completely human and then we find ourselves horribly repulsed by this "almost human" monstrosity.  That is what it is like to see the cats in CATS.  But it isn't even the design that is the essential problem, but how Hooper presents this horrific world.

In Jennyanydots' (Rebel Wilson's) number, she spends her time on screen forcing anthropomorphized mice and cockroaches dance and sing while she randomly eats them.  Fat cat Bustopher Jones (James Corden) dances around and eats literal garbage.  But the worst offense is with Grizabella.  Arguably, the best and most memorable song of the entire show is Grizabella's "Memory."  It is a heartfelt, epic ballad.  Hudson pushes the intense emotions with flowing tears.  Unfortunately, she also has flowing snot.  Her nose mucus cascades down her face to her open, singing mouth and it is such a repulsive sight that the movie at this point is unwatchable.

The choreography is good, but none of its beauty can take hold because of its context.  It's like pleasant music playing while you sit in a dentist's chair getting a root canal.  Rather than enjoy it, you are just waiting for the whole experience to end, which it never seems to do.  When the Jellicle choice is finally made, you think it will stop with this rousing finale.  No such luck.  Instead, we have Judy Dench staring right at you singing the most inane song about cats and dogs that feels like goes on for an eternity as you just beg for the credits to begin rolling.

I honestly feel badly for these poor actors.  They put their trust into this director.  They had to trust that the digital effect of the cat transformation would look good.  They trusted that their performances would translate into something relatable and engaging.  I remember looking at Sir Ian McKellen as Gus the Theater Cat pathetically licking water from a bowl and I thought, "Oh no, Gandalf... why?!?"  Idris Elba and Taylor Swift cannot do anything with this debacle.  All of the actors should feel betrayed.  I would.

This movie isn't even "So Bad It's Good!"  You feel trapped by the story.  During the film, I turned to my wife and said, "Didn't anyone say at any time during this production, 'We're not seriously doing this, are we?'"  Everything about this film is hideous, monstrous, and alien.  Nothing close to a human emotion can be found.