Yes, I Actually Saw Cats

What motivated me to do this? Was it morbid curiosity? Was it because people compared it to Rocky Horror Picture Show? Was it because I hadn’t seen a really bad movie since New Years Eve and Wonder Woman 1984?

Whatever it was, Cats lives up to its hype.

So Cats is based on a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who actually disowned this movie after watching it, and is directed by Tom Hooper, an Oscar-winning filmmaker. It was originally going to be a Spielberg-produced animated film, but was changed to a live-action one with the performers covered in CGI fur. The trailer debuted in July 2019, and currently has 64,000 likes to 184,000 dislikes (with most of those likes probably being ironic). It’s even on the Wikipedia page for the “list of films considered the worst” as the most recent entry after Dirty Grandpa.

So this movie had a lot of interesting factors to it, and is interesting in and of itself, but it’s definitely not good. Oh boy. No.

Easily the biggest problem with Cats is the screenplay, which has to be one of the worst of all time in relation to big-budget movies. There is no character development at all for anyone, and in the case of the protagonist, she learns nothing and just immediately accepts this insane cult of cats for what it is. Meanwhile, the villain of the movie is so unintimidating and so nothing as a character, the dumb cat puns are abundant, and the movie ends on 2 solid minutes of Judi Dench breaking the fourth wall to tell us something we already know.

The movie also moves so quickly between locations and concepts that it’s hard to understand the meaning of anything. For instance, they introduce at the start that a cat has three names, one of which is unknown (a la Skulduggery Pleasant), but spend only 20 seconds on that concept before immediately rushing to the next thing and never come back to it in a thematic way until the very end, where again, it’s introduced without context or point. It’s like an infinite tunnel of non-sequitur with the intent of confusing everyone nearby.

Addressing the most derided issue of the movie – the horrifying CGI – I almost got used to it, even though it weirded me out at the start, a bit like Alita: Battle Angel (which is actually a good movie). But as they kept introducing new characters who looked even more horrifying (Idris Elba in this movie is so shiny that it’s demonic), that effect wore off, and I just couldn’t connect at all with these inhuman alien things. It didn’t help that in the version I saw on Prime, the CGI on their hands was unfinished and I could still see their human features.

Additionally, the physics in this movie are non-existent. There’s no weight to any of the characters, and the green-screen floors make them look like they’re floating off the ground most of the time. It’s like a glitchy video game from before dynamic lighting and shadows were perfected.

Even the musical numbers are poor, having no impact because of the complete lack of story to anything, and the terrible direction and use of extreme wide shots further the emotional distance from the audience. While the singing itself is mostly strong, it’s hard to care when nothing interesting is happening. The only song of interest in the entire film was not actually in the play, but instead written for the film by Taylor Swift (who also has the best musical number in the whole film). That says a lot.

Now, a lot of people are saying that this movie has cult appeal, in the vein of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. While I can see people getting together and watching this movie to laugh at the sheer audacity of it, at the fact that it even exists, comparing it to Rocky Horror is not a good idea.

For instance, Rocky Horror actually is entertaining, with a coherent story and a clear self-awareness of how stupid it is. Cats, especially when watching it on your own, is incredibly boring, and only works if a group of friends got incredibly drunk and enjoyed pointing out continuity errors and ludicrous ideas. If you take anything away from this review, watch Rocky Horror (especially the stage musical) and ignore Cats.

Cats gets a magnificently deserved F.

I highly doubt that any of you have seen Cats, but if you did, what did you think?