Movie Musings: Why Cats is Such an Abomination

      Unless you’ve been living under a rock you have most likely heard about the severe drubbing the recent version of Cats received upon release. From the unfinished CGI that required the originally screened version to be recalled, to the grotesque ‘furry’ fetish designs of the characters that reportedly left cinemagoers feeling both horny and confused it was evident that there was a myriad of missteps along the way.

      However as always I like to make my own mind up on such matters so sat down to watch the film in its entirety.

      Long story short – yes there is all shades of wrong going on here – but so much more than just simply the design choices and visual aspects. But let’s get that out of the way first. The character and production design is indeed downright bizarre. They are anthropomorphic cats but in terms of proportion and facial features they are more human than not, but at times teetering perilously close to the uncanny valley. This uneasiness is further heightened by the way the cats often move and act in an overtly sexualized manner. I get that they are supposed to be graceful and lithe creatures but the execution is strange – the humanoid proportions often make their scuttling movements appear more like skinny monkeys than cats when they aren’t busy contorting, gyrating and splaying their legs like strippers.

      It doesn’t help that for the most part the cats appear naked. Well, actually that’s not true – there is a strange inconsistency where whilst some indeed appear naked, but others wear fur coats, trousers and hats or even one cat (Rebel Wilson’s 'Jennyanydots') unzips her fur ‘skin’ to reveal another skin underneath - but this one dressed in an outfit? Whilst you could argue that this was just some artistic flair during her song and shouldn’t be taken as something that happened literally this is counteracted when she repeats the same unzipping feat to escape her being tied up in a later scene.

      These kind of inconsistencies are rife throughout the film. Why does Macavity have the ability to teleport himself and the other cats he kidnaps? Why are some of the sets and locations cat-sized whilst others are human-sized and others yet somewhere in between that would adequately fit neither a human nor a cat? Why is Mr. Mistoffelees able to pull off a similar teleportation trick to transport another character when he is obviously only a stage magician (with a wand and top hat). Just because he tries really hard? That’s not how being a magician works! None of the above is afforded any explanation.

      The story itself is similarly bogged down in a strange lore and jargon that appears to be gobbledygook unless you are previously familiar with the musical. From what I can gather the basic gist is that all the cats want to be a ‘Jellicle Cat’ and strive to attend the ‘Jellicle Ball’. One cat can be chosen over all others to ascend to the ‘Heaviside Layer’ and come back to a new ‘Jellicle life’. What the flap does ‘Jellicle’ even mean? They mention it dozens of time in the film and I still don’t have a frickin’ clue beyond it being some abstract thing that is supremely desirable to these creatures. That being said, the actual story beats themselves in this film are utterly barebones. I would say about 80% of the film is literally just character introductions, ie: a new character presents themselves and proceeds to put forward their case as to why they should be the chosen one via the medium of song and dance. This repeats again and again. With nothing else progressing the story and no real sense of urgency it soon becomes maddeningly dull.

      Sure, there is some good production design and flashy dances going at times but as there is so much CG augmentation a lot of the group choreography looks a little too slick and clean, the unrealness of it making it less impressive than if you were to be watching a live version being performed on stage. At least watching a live performance you can admire the cast’s dancing and singing talent whereas much of that is lost in the CG-augmented dancing and studio recorded vocals of a production such as this. Why not just make the whole film fully animated? I guess they couldn’t then show off all the famous faces they managed to cast.

      All this and I haven’t even mentioned several other foibles: the fact that none of the songs are remotely memorable (the only one that is vaguely recognizable is ‘Memory’ of which Jennifer Hudson provides a delightful snotty rendition thereof), the issue of the disturbing cultish overtones that are unironically implied by this cat society, the CGI ‘floating’ faces on some of the cats during several of the film’s more energetic sequences, the numerous awful cat puns sprinkled throughout…

      Oh, and the dancing cockroaches with little human legs and faces are the stuff of nightmares.

      In conclusion I wouldn’t say this is a terrible film – just one that has some really bizarre design choices that serve to be further distracting from an already hard to be invested in story. Whilst the direction is competent enough, it seems content to simply replicate the story of the stage musical (only one new song was added to this version I believe) and therefore fails to acknowledge that as a film you may do well to adapt the source material differently.

     Ultimately who is this film supposed to be for? Fans of the musical appear to be largely appalled by this version and newcomers will likely leave dumbfounded at the fever-dream they had just witnessed.

      Just because we have the technology now to give life to these weird cat-humanoid CGI hybrids doesn’t mean that was necessarily the right thing to do for this adaptation. To quote Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should”.
      Those cockroaches, though... yuck.

28th April 2020