Title: Cats
Year: 2019
Director: Tom Hooper
Country: UK
Language: English
I haven't always been a cat person, but since my spouse moved in with their ginger one (named Silver) in 2014 I absolutely fell in love with felines. A year after, in 2015, we got a tortoise colored kitty named Bonnie. With my newfound fondness for those pets, I decided to check out the long-running musical Cats (1980) and well...it was quite bizarre. I did like the music numbers, like Mr.Mistoffeles. In 2019, it was announced that a big screen adaptation directed by Tom Hooper would hit theatres and...WOW.
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.
This movie MIGHT have worked in the 70's when people were stoned out of their minds, but Cats (2019) is THE fever dream of fever dreams. Such an iconic ensemble of actors (how do you make Taylor Swift, an iconic singer, look BAD in a musical!?) whose talents have been wasted at the hands of a director who has no business in Hollywood (I HATED Hooper's version of Les Miserables too!)
Where to begin? The choice of costuming is hideous. The cast of the broadway show used a realistic looking costuming and make-up, whereas this is filled to the brim with cheap CGI (why a human nose and no whiskers on a cat?) The set design makes my head hurt. The spatial relation & size of objects make very little sense. The singing is so laughably bad (*stares at Rum Tum Tugger)
The broadway musical at least had a weird, but curious sexuality about it. This movie...well, it tries, but comes off as goofy and awkward. Hooper's complete misdirection is baffling; making Cats a critical and commercial failure that was only viewed by people desiring to laugh AT it. I must admit though; some of the dancing is decent, albeit the frantic cuts border on Moulin Rouge "ADHD child buzzed out on sugar" territory.
The broadway musical at least had a weird, but curious sexuality about it. This movie...well, it tries, but comes off as goofy and awkward. Hooper's complete misdirection is baffling; making Cats a critical and commercial failure that was only viewed by people desiring to laugh AT it. I must admit though; some of the dancing is decent, albeit the frantic cuts border on Moulin Rouge "ADHD child buzzed out on sugar" territory.
Cats ultimately is worse than Moulin Rouge, because at least that film has a cool moment or two (cue Roxanne scene). Both films are absolutely dreadful though; Watch only if you want to laugh at the misfire.
No Rating (ZERO)
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