I just saw CATS, and I immediately regret it
I first saw the trailer for this film in a packed screening of a much better movie. I don’t remember which movie exactly, but it couldn’t have been worse. I laughed throughout the trailer, but the last few frames really sent me over the edge. It ends with the line “This holiday season, you will believe.” Believe in what? Cats? I already believe in cats, dude. Here it is for your viewing pleasure.
Nothing about this movie works. The motion capture animation is deeply disturbing. Why couldn’t they just fully animate this thing? Or better yet, not make it at all? I don’t want to see Ian McKellen as a cat. I can never unsee that. Every song is excruciating, and the entire movie is nothing but songs. There’s hardly a single word in the whole damn thing that isn’t sung. Half the cats wear fur coats, which suggests a fucked up, cannibalistic society that is never discussed. The entire movie is incredibly earnest and no one seems to understand the absurdity of it all.
The acting is terrible. The movie is full of otherwise competent actors making ridiculous choices, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given that they all made the insane choice to appear in it in the first place. Fucking Idris Elba is in this! What are you doing, man? Every cast member is going to seriously regret making this movie, except the always unbearable James Corden, who will undoubtedly believe it to be a masterpiece.
And I haven’t even gotten to the plot. Holy shit, the plot. Cats is about a cult of genital-less cats called the jellicles (gellicles? I don’t know, I’m not gonna look it up) that meets once a year so that its leader can select a member to receive new life. This life is granted by launching said cat into the sky in a hot air balloon, presumably to die a cold, lonely death in the clouds. That’s right. This movie is about human sacrifice. Or I guess cat sacrifice, but you get my meaning.
Finally, after the winning cat gets hurled into the sky to its inevitable doom, Cat Judy Dench turns directly to the camera and gives the audience a lecture about how to properly treat cats. “Cats are not dogs,” she helpfully reminds us. Sometimes I forget that.
If you’ve read this review and you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh that sounds hilarious, I need to go see that right now,” please don’t. That’s exactly what I thought when I saw the trailer, and I could not have been more wrong. Cats walks the line between batshit crazy and depressingly boring and somehow achieves both. It’s less than two hours, but it feels like three. The dopey songs and unsettling animation just won’t end. When the credits rolled, I couldn’t get out of that theater fast enough.
In case I’ve been at all unclear, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE. It’s a joyless, exasperating pile of shit, and it’s the worst thing I’ve seen all year.
Michael Dixon was a mild mannered accountant by day and a mild mannered movie watcher by night. However, seeing Cats has driven him into an intense rage, and he’s become an angry, hateful shell of his former self. Presumably, he will still not do your taxes for you, although this experience has caused him to question many of his life choices. He lives in Austin, Texas with his lovely television and collection of fine whiskies, and he may need to purchase more to drown out this horrifying memory. You can’t purchase his book anywhere because it doesn’t exist.
