Cats (2019) [Yes, that one] - Movie Review

This really is the year that keeps proving me wrong in the worst possible ways, it seems. Back when I reviewed the Aladdin remake, I foolishly thought that that would be the worst it could get for instant audience scepticism that a film will be any good. And then in walks this little film, lighting the literate masses’ brains of fire with just how nightmarish it apparently is. It went beyond merely the marketing and went into the post-film conversation itself, not to mention the post-release conversation. I went into this expecting an unmitigated train wreck, the kind that makes for a delirious viewing experience… and admittedly, this is indeed a train wreck. But it’s not even the fun kind.

The cast is separated into three distinct groups: The actors who can’t sing (Judi Dench and Ian McKellen are seriously trying, but alas, to no avail, and who in the hell thought Ray Winstone should be in this thing?!), the singers who can’t act (why they gave Jennifer Hudson, the best singer here by miles, the least to do in the film proper is beyond me) and the dancers who can’t do either (Francesca Hayward’s debut role as the central character Victoria has almost negative charisma, and if there’s anything that can make Jason Derulo’s critic-bashing comments any uglier, it’s seeing him attempt a British accent in this thing). Even the actors who have already shown aptitude in multiple disciplines like James Corden and Rebel Wilson fail to deliver here, and oddly enough for the same reason: The film is far more interested in using them for fat slapstick than actually utilising their talents.

As for the music, having not seen the original theatrical production, I don’t know if this is a problem with this film specifically or with the musical at large but it seems to be trying for every musical genre that exists. Sometimes it’s jazzy, sometimes it’s 80’s synth-heavy, sometimes it’s Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mutated attempts at rock n’ roll, sometimes it even dips into trap beats, often all in the course of a single musical number. It occasionally gives the impression that this is an approach where each character has a genre that fits their personality (Derulo’s Rum Tum Tugger gets funk and R&B, Victoria gets ballet orchestration, Taylor Swift’s Bombalurina has jazz, etc.), but it’s way too muddled for any of that to sink in and it just sounds like a complete mess.

And then there’s the visuals… dear fucking Dude, are there the visuals. This film made headlines recently because the initial version of the film that got released to cinemas had unfinished CGI work. In response, they basically pulled a Day-One Patch and requested thousands of American cinemas to download a graphical fix. Apparently, the fixed version hasn’t made it to Australia yet.

Not since seeing Neil Diamond in blackface for the Jazz Singer remake have I felt the need to point out, if you’re going to go this far with the effects work, could you at least finish the hands first? It is astoundingly distracting just how specifically unfinished this can get, and when given to Tom Hooper’s decidedly untheatrical framing, it forces the audience to look at just how ugly all of this shit is. The claustrophobic framing may have worked at times with Hooper’s Les Misérables, but it certainly doesn’t here.

Because of how baffling so much of the presentation turns out, I can’t really say anything about the story and/or character treatment as it barely feels like there even is any. Again, not experienced with the original play, but the idea of character-oriented songs and using them to reveal the character’s true self and their worthiness to be sent into the Heaviside Layer (in a movie that feels more like being sent to the Ninth Circle) is honestly rather interesting. It definitely puts more stock in the presentation and choreography than said characterisation, granted, but it should be a decent fit for the big-screen treatment.

Unfortunately, between the human hands that they keep referring to as ‘paws’, the lurid drinkings of milk, the unzipping of cat skins, and the film’s utter refusal to fucking end once we reach the final musical number… sorry, but it’s really hard to appreciate any of it when the film itself seems intent to sabotage anything good to be found here.

It is frankly baffling just how bad this turned out. Hell, this should easily fit into bad-movie-night territory out of its sheer unrelenting batshit nature. But no. No, it isn’t even the fun kind of bad movie. Instead, it reaches new lows for what bad movies are capable of. Say what you will about the Sonic The Hedgehog redesign, at least they fixed it before it went out in its entirety. This isn’t just bad; if the studios get it in their heads that this ‘release first, fix later’ attitude is feasible, it could be the harbinger of even more shit in the future. And hell, I’m willing to bet that whatever superficial tweaks they made to the CGI wouldn’t be enough to fix the everything else that’s wrong with this thing.