As I write this 2019’s CATS has only been in release a little over two weeks, yet it’s already joined the ranks of PAINT YOUR WAGON, AT LONG LAST LOVE and CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC. It is, in other words, a colossal music-fueled flop that its makers really should have seen coming.
CATS was adapted from the long running Andrew Lloyd Webber stage extravaganza of the same name (based on T.S. Eliot’s 1939 children’s book OLD POSSUM’S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS). Numerous attempts have been made to transpose the material to the screen (by a list of filmmakers whose ranks include Steven Spielberg), with director Tom Hooper, an Academy Award winner for THE KING’S SPEECH, ending up with that unenviable task (Spielberg, for the record, was an executive producer, but wisely left his name off the credits), together with a very of-the-moment cast that mixes the seasoned veterans Judi Dench, Ian McKellan, Jennifer Hudson and Idris Elba with the decidedly less prestigious likes of Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson and James Corden, all of whom appear to have been hired based on name value rather than talent.
This $95 million film’s troubles were evident early on. Hooper was unhappy with the CGI, resulting in the firing of one special effects firm and a mad scramble to finish the film in time for its December 20 release date, only to have it pulled from theaters after the opening weekend and replaced with a new version containing updated effects work. That, needless to add, did nothing for its dismal takings at the box office, with Universal standing to lose a reported $100 million on CATS.
The story, such as it is, involves a stray cat named Victoria (a character not in the stage play who exists solely to advance the narrative) getting schooled in the ways of the Jellicle cats—actually weird looking were-cats who walk upright. These cats spends their days singing and dancing, with their ultimate goal being to get chosen by their leader Old Deuteronomy to be taken to the “Heaviside Layer” and somehow “come back to a new Jellicle life.” Along the way a Jellicle Ball is held that serves as a combination dance competition and initiation rite, with high kicking and synchronized tail swishing being constants.
Each of the Jellicles introduce themselves in a succession of elaborate musical numbers. Included are Mr. Mistoffelees, a magician cat whose powers are enhanced, it seems, by his fellows chanting “there never was there ever a cat so clever as magical Mr. Mistoffelees”; Skimbleshanks the railway cat, so named because he hangs out in a railway train (and likes to tap dance); the overweight Bustopher Jones, whose main point of interest is apparently the fact that he wears white spats; the long past-his-prime Gus the Theatre cat; Macavity, the “Napoleon of crime” who uses supernatural means to whisk his fellow cats away to a ship where he makes ‘em walk the plank; and Grizabella, the onetime “Glamour Cat” who’s now an ageing recluse.
All this is fleshed out via Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “classic” tunes, whose worth is strictly a matter of opinion (I found them antic and repetitive, with the main theme reprised far too often). Those songs dominated the stage version of CATS, which was otherwise dialogue free; that fact, alas, doesn’t stop Hooper from adding snatches of clumsily inserted and wholly unnecessary dialogue (such as Old Deuteronomy designating her Heaviside Layer choice with the words “I choose you”), which is far from the only fumble he makes.
This is a film, in fact, in which virtually every creative decision was wrong. The handheld camerawork is a serious mistake, severely reducing the spectacle so integral to Hooper’s conception, as are the CGI enhanced cat costumes, which with their moving ears, tails and whiskered human faces are strange and even creepy. In contrast to the skin-tight figure-flattering outfits worn by the stage performers, the genital-less costumes here are bulky and ungainly—and deeply unsexy. Those costumes seriously affect the dancing, which is uninspiring, and certainly aren’t helped by the ADD-addled music video editing that has become standard in film musicals.
The problems extend to the overly opulent interiors, which include a kitchen, a brightly lit street corner with various cat-friendly establishments (a “Milk Bar,” etc.) and a fancy ballroom—quite a contrast to the junkyard setting of the stage play (where it made more sense that the cats would want to be whisked away to another world). We also get human faced mice, dancing cockroaches and appearances by quite a few embarrassed-looking cat suited performers (who in addition to the abovementioned stars include Jason Derulo, Ray Winstone and ballerina Francesca Hayward).
If it weren’t all so outrageously dull I’d call CATS a new bad movie classic. It may well become that anyway, as it takes real talent to make a movie this unremittingly atrocious.
Vital Statistics
CATS
Universal Pictures
Director: Tom Hooper
Producers: Tim Bevan, Erci Fellner, Debra Hayward, Tom Hooper
Screenplay: Lee Hall, Tom Hooper
Cinematography: Christopher Ross
Editing: Melanie Oliver
Cast: Francesca Hayward, Laurie Davidson, Robbie Fairchild, James Corden, Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellan, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson, Mette Towley, Naoimh Morgan, Jason Derulo, Ray Winstone, Laurent Bourgeois, Steven McRae, Danny Collins, Larry Bourgeois, Daniela Norman