Nobody is escaping this one clean. Nobody. Cats will leave a stain on a career on the order of those guys who have to go door-to-door explaining their felony convictions when they move into new neighborhoods. If either Dame Judi Dench or Sir Ian McKellen loses their knighthood over this travesty, not a single person among us would be surprised or offended. I’ve been wondering out loud for years when Idris Elba was going to finally arrive at a signature role. Well, as the saying goes, be careful what you ask for, because this coughed-up hairball of a film just might be it.
A tedious self-important furry convention in film form, Cats prowled its way onto big screens this holiday season on the pretense that audiences will enjoy anything so long as there’s music involved. Yeah, um, no. A newcomer to Cats, I was astounded by how confusing, empty, and ultimately stupid the film felt. But that doesn’t quite cover the overwhelming cinematographatic assault when one realizes that every cast member –on what clearly is a stage set and nothing more- is dressed as a bizarre human-cat hybrid. You found Will Smith as a blue genie alarming? Imagine 30 blue Wills Smith. Oh, these are really Cats, are they? Well, gosh, they almost look like Cats in the same way that a Twinkie resembles a banana. And they behave exactly like Cats in the same way that a Twinkie tastes like a banana. The important part is that you can shove this film right up the wazoo in the same way you can shove a Twink — I’ll not finish that thought.
The bizarre gets rolling early when the only human in the film unceremoniously dumps a sack of Francesca Hayward onto a sound stage made to look like an alley. As soon as the cat is literally let out of the bag, Victoria (Hayward) is serenaded by a series of frolicky furries who need her to know what a Jellicle cat is. Gotta say, after watching an entire film and reading a TS Eliot poem or two, I still have no f***ing idea what a Jellicle cat is. The lesson here is that the Jellicles, whatever they are, belong to a special tribe in which the most sincere Pumpkin Patch among them may already be a winner. Oh goodness, I’ve mixed holidays, genres, metaphors, and even Ed McMahon in there.
After these evanJellicles preach to the catses, the next hour+ of film is devoted song-after-song-after-song to a different “cat” crooning a self-laudatory introduction number. A gamut of singing celebrities: Rebel Wilson, James Corden, Dench, McKellen, Taylor Swift participate in the disconnected parade of self-obsequiousness. And occasionally, numbers are followed by the jealous Macavity (Elba) stealing potential sweepstakes winners and tying them to the
masts his pirate ship. Why does a cat have a pirate ship and why can’t he get by magic whatever he desires from the sweepstakes victory? Don’t know, don’t know, don’t care.
Somewhere around the time where Jennifer Hudson sings “Memory,” the only tune most of us know in Cats, the film actually got around to a production number I genuinely enjoyed. I couldn’t be redder in the face retrospectively noting the title of said piece, “Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat.” This is a character cast list infested with not so much inventive names as euphemisms for sexual acts banned in several states: “Rumpleteazer,” “Mungojerrie,” “Rum Tum Tugger,” etc. Despite the dirty talk, “Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat” might just take the cake for worst nomenclature. It wasn’t enough to leave it at “Skimbleshanks.” No, you had to go the extra mile and point out this particular excrement has to be clarified because there might be more than one “Skimbleshanks.” Am I understanding that correctly? The Skimbleshanks song reveals, shockingly, that this cat has actually has a job of sorts. This is unique; the thing you need to know about Jellicle cats is that they’re unemployed.
The saddest part of of this whole production is –while I’ve admittedly never seen the musical itself— I think the film is true to the original Andrew Lloyd Webber vision. In essence, it’s a bunch of furries singing about themselves. That can’t be far from what Webber had in mind, can it? I mean it’s not like Cats was ever intended to be anything other than A Chorus Line for people really, really, really into makeup. And this all leads me to an honest and sad conclusion that the original Broadway production had to be the most overrated POS ever. How the Hell did that thing last as long as “Hamilton?” Did people have no taste in the 1980s? [Fill in your own punchline here] And if you watch Cats, you will not lack for the desire to fill in your own punchlines. Get used to it.
♪Midday
And the theater’s empty
Not quite the blockbuster
They had hoped to achieve
If you stare at
These furries for more than a day
“This is so sad”
Is what you’ll believe♫
Rated PG, 110 Minutes
Director: Tom Hooper
Writer: Lee Hall, Tom Hooper
Genre: Historic disaster. Think Ishtar, Waterworld, or Heaven’s Gate
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Those for whom schadenfreude is a calling
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: A fan of any cast member
♪ Parody Inspired by “Memory”
I’ve never seen the Broadway (nor off-Broadway) production, nor do I plan on watching this film. I daresay this was a bullet your could have dodged, and no one would have been the wiser.
For my money, I’d rather watch the Kimmy Schmidt episodes where Titus happens into the Broadway cast of Cats. From what you’ve written, it seems the show’s lampooning of the production is spot on.