Synopsis
A tribe of cats called the Jellicles must decide yearly which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new Jellicle life.
Directed by Tom Hooper
Starring a bunch of people you'd assumed had better things to do with their lives...
Review
I was on board for the wackiness of Cats, so much so that I held off writing up some of my end of year pieces because I was waiting for it...
The annual Jellicle Ball is upon us and it's time to pick the cat that will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and start a new life. But as the hopefuls prepare their performances a string of catnappings leaves the competition a little thin.
[Nostalgia enters the room looking cheery. A cat lurks in the background. Nostalgia starts tapdancing. Suddenly a red dot appears on Nostalgia's back and the cat savagely attacks it, leaving it bloody and beaten on the ground.]
As I've been saying to people... this film isn't good, but it's also not entirely bad, it has its moments.
Let's talk about the CGI first. You know what? It's not all that bad. Take out whatever you think about the concept of the human cats the fur in the second trailer looked much better than its first outing. During the film, Old Deuteronomy looked so fluffy I just wanted to pet her. The ear movements were pretty good, if a little consistent, it felt a little like they'd looked up cat actions in a book and taken the textbook description to animate rather than watching an actual cat. The cats as a whole could probably been a little larger compared to the "life-sized" staging around them because the ratio did feel a little off, but it wasn't really enough to make it off-putting.
Ever since I saw Cats at the cinema I've been singing the songs, but that's off the back of me listening to the stage recordings on Spotify and not the film versions. They don't quite have the same pep of the originals, watching them wasn't the wondrous experience I was hoping for. There are small exceptions. Taylor Swift was excellent and set a perfect tone for her number. Jason Derulo is a showman in this and after his Red Dwarf Cat-like clip in the trailer I was excited for his full numbers, they didn't disappoint.
Memory has to be my favourite song since seeing it on the stage and I was keen to see the talented Jennifer Hudson perform it. When it surfaced briefly I was worried, there was no impact, no heart... potential disaster. Finally the full number happened at the end and I was convinced. I listened to Hudson sing with such emotion that I cried, streams of tears and a quivering lip. It was beautiful.
The rest of the cast, while chockful of talent, didn't have quite the same buzz about it.
Francesca Hayward is a massively talented ballerina but the acting portion of the performance didn't quite hit the spot. This wasn't helped by the advert that has been running with her and Jennifer Hudson before the trailer was running before every film I watched for about two weeks.
I love Dame Judi and Sir Ian, and it was fun seeing them in this, but both had their issues. I wasn't a fan of Dench's moments of singing and the melancholy role of Gus for McKellen was a little unsettling. Who doesn't love seeing an Idris Elba film? He does the bad "guy" well but there was something wrong here too, I think that was partly to do with that fur torso.
It would be entirely possible to go on and on about this and all its ins and outs, but I don't think either of us have the time for that. I do feel that having the previous knowledge of Cats on the stage will help immensely when seeing this. That does also have some drawbacks though, when we saw it at the theatre it was a very interactive experience with the cats in the aisles with the audience and that's something the film can't compete with. I'm tempted to say that they should have forgone CGI aspects for the most part and had costumed cast. Making something more realistic when everything around it is unrealistic (in that it's not quite what we're used to as regular-sized humans) makes everything more confusing, perhaps the low tech angle would have made it a little less scary to some.
The annual Jellicle Ball is upon us and it's time to pick the cat that will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and start a new life. But as the hopefuls prepare their performances a string of catnappings leaves the competition a little thin.
[Nostalgia enters the room looking cheery. A cat lurks in the background. Nostalgia starts tapdancing. Suddenly a red dot appears on Nostalgia's back and the cat savagely attacks it, leaving it bloody and beaten on the ground.]
As I've been saying to people... this film isn't good, but it's also not entirely bad, it has its moments.
Let's talk about the CGI first. You know what? It's not all that bad. Take out whatever you think about the concept of the human cats the fur in the second trailer looked much better than its first outing. During the film, Old Deuteronomy looked so fluffy I just wanted to pet her. The ear movements were pretty good, if a little consistent, it felt a little like they'd looked up cat actions in a book and taken the textbook description to animate rather than watching an actual cat. The cats as a whole could probably been a little larger compared to the "life-sized" staging around them because the ratio did feel a little off, but it wasn't really enough to make it off-putting.
Ever since I saw Cats at the cinema I've been singing the songs, but that's off the back of me listening to the stage recordings on Spotify and not the film versions. They don't quite have the same pep of the originals, watching them wasn't the wondrous experience I was hoping for. There are small exceptions. Taylor Swift was excellent and set a perfect tone for her number. Jason Derulo is a showman in this and after his Red Dwarf Cat-like clip in the trailer I was excited for his full numbers, they didn't disappoint.
Memory has to be my favourite song since seeing it on the stage and I was keen to see the talented Jennifer Hudson perform it. When it surfaced briefly I was worried, there was no impact, no heart... potential disaster. Finally the full number happened at the end and I was convinced. I listened to Hudson sing with such emotion that I cried, streams of tears and a quivering lip. It was beautiful.
The rest of the cast, while chockful of talent, didn't have quite the same buzz about it.
Francesca Hayward is a massively talented ballerina but the acting portion of the performance didn't quite hit the spot. This wasn't helped by the advert that has been running with her and Jennifer Hudson before the trailer was running before every film I watched for about two weeks.
I love Dame Judi and Sir Ian, and it was fun seeing them in this, but both had their issues. I wasn't a fan of Dench's moments of singing and the melancholy role of Gus for McKellen was a little unsettling. Who doesn't love seeing an Idris Elba film? He does the bad "guy" well but there was something wrong here too, I think that was partly to do with that fur torso.
It would be entirely possible to go on and on about this and all its ins and outs, but I don't think either of us have the time for that. I do feel that having the previous knowledge of Cats on the stage will help immensely when seeing this. That does also have some drawbacks though, when we saw it at the theatre it was a very interactive experience with the cats in the aisles with the audience and that's something the film can't compete with. I'm tempted to say that they should have forgone CGI aspects for the most part and had costumed cast. Making something more realistic when everything around it is unrealistic (in that it's not quite what we're used to as regular-sized humans) makes everything more confusing, perhaps the low tech angle would have made it a little less scary to some.
What you should do
It's not something I would recommend people go to see, under normal circumstances I would say you should see it on the stage but I don't think that's possible in the UK currently.
Movie thing you wish you could take home
A ring big enough that I can wear it like a big bangle, impractical yes, but melt that baby down and I can work with that.
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