By Shane Conto
Over the past couple of years, it seems like any movie can get the Broadway treatment. Hell, Mean Girls is a Broadway musical now! But it is not as often we get a Broadway show taken from the theatre to the big screen. This rare occurrence strikes again with the release of Tom Hooper’s silver screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Cats. The holiday season has been a traditional time for musicals (The Greatest Showman and Mary Poppins Returns are a few recent examples) and 2019 is represented by this strange yet extremely popular musical. I do not know much about Cats beyond its weird reputation and the great gag at the show’s expense in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt but I came in hoping for a fun time.
Tom Hooper made a name for himself directing musicals with Les Miserables for which he utilized live singing from his cast. This method, for better or worse, was also utilized for Cats. I have to say that one of the film’s greatest strengths is the performances of its stacked cast. An array of ballerinas, singers, and actors fill out this collection of horrifyingly CGI cat people. The singing for the most part is strong (with Jennifer Hudson and James Corden being the standouts for me) but we do have some weaker links such as Ian McKellan and Ray Winstone. There are some odd movement choices from the actors and strange CGI shakiness cause some awkward movement but the cast is talented enough to do their best with it. To be truthful, the CGI is mostly horrible and the limitations of the technology cause clucky movements during some of the numbers. The cat/human facial models are distracting and unnerving to say the least. Would it have killed them to be campier and go with the elaborate creations of the stage show? The cool idea of having regular sized actors on over large stages was inspired but the design does not quite live up to that potential.
You can complain about the CGI all you want but where this film really falls short is on the writing front. Besides plenty of well written songs that are hilarious or moving, the written aspects of the film leave a lot to be desired. An important question for our audience…what is this film about? That is an excellent question.
If you were to say this film is about a cat wandering around aimlessly listening to other cats sing about themselves or others, you really wouldn’t be wrong.
There is no central plot thread that feels strong enough to sustain a feature film (let alone one that pushes two hours). Our young and naïve protagonist, Victoria, is dropped off and meets countless other cats who sing to her about a variety of different cat related things. But wait, there’s more! This is also a fantasy (if you couldn’t tell) because magic exists as Macavity, played with zeal by Idris Elba, makes cats disappear. And then two hours of singing weird CGI cat people occurs along with disappearing acts and not much else.
Your enjoyment of this film will really depend on how far on the plank you will go out on. The story is absurd and ludicrous. The music can be fun and silly (but most of the songs are adaptations so can you really credit the film with that?). The effects are iffy at best and there are strange sexual undertones through which is just plain freaky when dealing with people with cat fur CGI’ed on them. As a film, Cats really falls flat on its face. From a silly musical experience, it works well enough. The real question to take away is, is that enough for you to sit through this film?