Cats (2019)
Rated PG for some rude and suggestive humor
Score: WTF
In lieu of a formal review of Cats, I am simply going to post the unedited transcript of the conversation that I had on Discord with a friend of mine. He and a couple of my other friends online were egging me on to see it, and having been... intrigued by the trailers, I obliged. And since the theater was completely empty save for me, I had no problem pulling out my phone and just going to town live.
Me (10:55 PM): I’m seeing Cats right now.
My friend (10:55 PM): Poor you
Me (10:56 PM): I brought McDonald's and everything. Bring it.
Me (10:56 PM): Theater is literally empty save for me.
My friend (10:58 PM): I'm with them!
Me (11:20 PM): ONE MINUTE IN AND IM ALREADY SCARED
Me (11:34 PM): WTF
My friend (11:34 PM): OMG?
Me (11:47 PM): WHY IS JAMES CORDEN IN THIS
Me (11:59 PM): JUDI DENCH IS HERE THIS IS THE EDITED VERSION IT FIXED NOTHING
Me (11:59 PM): WAIT I SEE THE RING ON HER HAND THIS IS THE ORIGINAL CUT
My friend (12:01 AM): You can still see her hand!?!?
My friend (12:01 AM): SHRIEKING
Me (12:01 AM): YES
My friend (12:01 AM): I hope you're questioning your life choices right now!
Me (12:01 AM): YES
My friend (12:02 AM): GOOD
Me (12:23 AM): DONT TELL ME THEY PUT IN A STARLIGHT EXPRESS REFERENCE
Me (12:23 AM): WEBBER HAS A THING FOR TRAINS
Me (12:23 AM): TAYLOR IS HERE
My friend (12:26 AM): omg
Me (12:26 AM): WHY IS TAYLOR SINGING WITH A BRITISH ACCENT
Me (12:26 AM): WTF
My friend (12:33 AM): ?
Me (12:36 AM): THE FUCKING MICE AGAIN
My friend (12:41 AM): omg
My friend (12:41 AM): the way I am casually so wiped out today
Me (12:53 AM): IF MICE AND ROACHES ARE ALIVE LIKE CATS THEN WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE SHRIMP THEY JUST ATE
My friend (12:53 AM): :Town of Salem emoji:
Me (12:54 AM): A CAT IS NOT A DOG
My friend (12:56 AM): Dogs >>>
Me (12:58 AM): ...so, that was Cats.
My friend (12:58 AM): That bad, huh?
Me (12:58 AM): Yep.
Me (12:58 AM): Can't say I wasn't warned.
My friend (12:59 AM): dddd
My friend (12:59 AM): poor you
My friend (1:00 AM): I can't wait for the review
My friend (1:00 AM): lmao
My friend (1:00 AM): I really can't
My friend (1:00 AM): That's gonna be a blast to read
Me (1:37 AM): You won't have to wait long. Trust me.
My friend (1:38 AM): Oooh yassss
My friend (1:38 AM): You'll need to send me it for sure. Super hyped
Anyway...
...what fresh hell did I just watch? The plot was absolute nonsense. It's about a bunch of cats competing to see who will be reincarnated, and Idris Elba was playing Cat Satan, I think. A whole bunch of world-class actors and musicians were slathered in a mix of makeup and CGI to look like freaky Dr. Moreau cat-people; stripped of the artifice of the stage production, the effects drove this film straight into the uncanny valley and never left. They really should've just made this an animated film with the cats looking like, well, cartoon cats like they had been planning to for so long, because then this movie might've been cute and charming like a Pixar or Disney movie. Hell, they should've just handed it off to Pixar or Disney themselves. It's rated PG, so clearly they were aiming for the same family audience that made The Greatest Showman a hit two years ago. (On that note, I have a personal rule when writing reviews that states that I save the "hard" swear words for movies, good or bad, that I do not believe parents should bring their kids to. Read the chat transcript above and do the math.) Everything you heard was true: there are no words to describe the abomination that is the overarching visual aesthetic of this movie. And Taylor Swift singing in an English accent was somehow just as wrong. I lost count of the number of times I muttered "what the fuck?" to myself under my breath. In the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, they got so obsessed with whether they could make this thing that they didn't stop to ask if they should. I'll give credit to the people who put the trailers together: they really were a pure and honest expression of what this movie is about, warts and all.
The singing, dancing, and set design, at least, were fun to watch, as is to be expected for a Hollywood musical that had this much money thrown at it. But that's about it. When I wasn't staring slack-jawed at the screen in horror at the 110-minute train wreck unfolding in front of me, I was bored to the point of checking my watch to see when this movie would be over. There were, after all, only so many ways it could shock me, and after the first act it started to wear thin. At times, it was like I was watching the Serbian Film of family musicals: yeah, it's shocking, but what else you got? It managed to get its juices going again in act three when Taylor entered the fray, but that was too little, too late. This was a movie that fluttered between "so bad it's good" and just plain boring, the actual meat of the story failing to grab me beyond the immediate hook of the songs and the horror of the effects. If they were going to create an actual story for a mostly plotless musical built more around themes and T. S. Eliot poems than narrative, then they could have done far, far better than this.
The Bottom Line
That shock you had when you first saw the trailer? That's all that this really has going for it. The film adaptation of Cats really is as bad as you heard, a film that's likely to live on as a cult classic among gawking theater nerds but which holds little appeal if you're not already into Broadway.
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