Director: Tom Hooper
Writers: Tom Hooper (Screenplay) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (musical)
Cast: Francesca Hayward, Idris Elba, Judy Dench, Laurie Davidson, and Jennifer Hudson
Pretty little kitty Victoria is abandoned in an alleyway where she comes face to face with a unique tribe known as the Jellicle Cats. She arrived on the most important night of the year, as the Jellicle Cats prepare for their annual ball. Each year the cats choose one member of the tribe to ascend to the Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a new life. Victoria makes her way through the tribe learning the mysterious ways of the Jellicle, whilst discovering her own new sense of self.
Cats is a CGI fever-dream adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s award-winning Broadway musical. As a Broadway production, Cats achieved incredible success, making it the fourth longest-running musical in Broadway history. The original show was adapted from a collection of T.S. Elliot poems, from the 1939 book, “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”. Andrew Lloyd Webber put the poems to music in 1977 and opened on Broadway in 1982. His musical went on to win seven Tony Awards and inspire a straight to DVD version in 1998. As a stage production, the musical has known phenomenal success, however, as a feature film, the story falls flat. Something was clearly lost in translation. Despite the heavy usage of CGI effects, a star-studded cast and all of the award-winning music of the play, the movie is a bizarre bore that makes us question its place in history. The world in which Cats takes place is an underworld of sorts, that exists alongside “real” life. Essentially the story offers a glimpse into the secret life of cats, complete with dumpster diving strays, abandoned alley cats, and lazy house cats. The only sliver of humanity appears briefly, as Victoria is unceremoniously dumped in an alley. Her arrival kicks off two hours of yawn-inducing singing, peppered with occasionally energetic dance numbers.
Professional ballerina Francesca Hayward is the wide-eyed heroine Victoria. Her lithe movements and innocent visage were among the film’s few highlights. Cats is her first film and she holds her own among her more seasoned castmates. The rest of the cast basically reprises their usual roles, but with fur. Rebel Wilson is the clumsy funny girl, Idris Elba is the intense and mysterious Macavity, Judy Dench is the wise old Deuteronomy, and James Corden does his usual self-deprecating song and dance. Pop stars Jason Derulo and Taylor Swift also appear in the film, but neither offers anything special or memorable. Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger shows us his energetic dance moves which are not nearly as entertaining as the musings regarding his digitally removed genitals. Taylor shows up for 90 seconds as a catnip spreading bad kitty and accomplice to the heinous Macavity. We would have loved to see more of Jennifer Hudson, as the mangy self-loathing Grizabella, she gave an excellent performance. As expected, Hudson’s passion and raw emotion are evident in every note she sings. Her closing rendition of “Memories” is achingly beautiful and almost worth the wait.
The film is directed by Tom Hooper who is no stranger to bringing Broadway to the big screen He directed 2012’s Les Miserables which went on to receive many accolades including three Oscars wins. Fans of the stage production will be pleased that he strayed very little from the original. We’ve never seen the live version, the film is our first introduction to the tale and we were unimpressed. As children of the ’80s and ’90s, we grew up watching the commercials and had high expectations. Though we did not enjoy the film as much as we had hoped, we believe that those who witnessed the stage version will relish the trip down memory lane. For us, the Cats phenomenon will, unfortunately, remain a mystery, we may never fully understand what made it so successful. In summation, Cats could have been an amazing journey of fantasy, with updated music and exciting storyline. Instead, It is a digitally enhanced version of a musical based on an old book of poems whose time has long passed.
Catch CATS, if you dare, in theaters Friday, December 20, 2019. Meow!