Now most of the time I steer clear of spoiling a film’s plot for myself, but I’m wondering if I made a mistake in going into Cats blind. Directed by Tom Hooper, this was the same strategy I also used when I saw his version of Les Miserables. And that was decent enough, since Revolution-era France is relatively easy to recreate for a major motion picture. But Cats is…different. Cats is not only the quintessential “blockbuster musical” that changed Broadway forever, it’s a wild fantasy that requires a lot of suspension of disbelief from the audience. And even as someone who knows next to nothing about this stuff, even though it’s got a massive following- I get the sense it’s always been a fairly controversial play.
Said following will be familiar with the story- a band of “Jellicle Cats” gather for the annual Jellicle Ball, where after much singing and interpretive dancing, Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench) makes a choice for one lucky puss to reach the Heaviside Layer. Victoria the White Cat is played here by Francesca Hayward, and she’s elevated here as an audience surrogate, the newcomer cat who Munkustrap (an energetic Robbie Fairchild) shows the ropes and the details of proper cat-naming.
The strongest aspects of this film are, of course, the classic songs themselves. Jason DeRulo is a very charismatic Rum Tum Tugger, the ladies’ cat. Jennifer Hudson pours as much raw emotion as she can into her Grizabella, a former “glamour cat” who’s shunned as an outcast. Taylor Swift is Bombalurina, performing the “No One Like Macavity” song in a way that closely resembles Florence + The Machine’s You Got The Love video, which was cool. And James Corden is clearly having a ball as the food-fixated Bustopher Jones, looking right at home in this environment.
But as I write this review, I’m watching footage of the Cats live show. And as good as the choreography in this film can get, the movements of the stage performers feel natural and lively. It’s partly because the audience isn’t having to deal with awkward and incomplete computer modeling as they watch, let alone the odd CGI shaping of the actor’s heads in the movie. As opposed to the exaggerated makeup on stage, in the movie the Jellicles’ ears are digitally erased and replaced by weird cat eats on the top of their faces, but with human heads. It’s NOT charming at all, and it just comes off disturbing and unnatural.
Ok, so I get you don’t want to copy the Broadway production exactly, and I’m not opposed to realistic-looking CG creatures. But this blend of real human faces on humany fur-bodies, and they’re small like regular cats? It doesn’t work, they look more like horrible mutants than something I’d want a plush toy of. For something this rooted in magical weirdness, how much better would it not only look, but feel, were it 100% animated without the clumsy human actors having to be green- screened?
I’d love to see the Cats story done by a Disney, Don Bluth or Dreamworks, with Mr. Mistoffelees (here played by Laurie Davidson), Rumpleteazer (Naoimh Morgan) and the tap-dancing Skimbleshanks (Steven McRae) as cartoon felines drawn in the fashion of The Aristocats, or Oliver and Company. Things like Rebel Wilson performing “The Old Gumbie Cat” might work better with cuddlier, toonier characters. Give me some Rescuers or NIMH-styled mice, not these creepy mouse children with uncanny valley human faces plastered onto their heads (same goes for the roaches, yikes.)
Idris Elba plays Macavity, a mystical feline villain who can kidnap other cats with a magical wave of the paw. And Elba is clearly trying to do a good job, but the stage Macavity- who has a very sophisticated design that pops with bright oranges, reds and blacks- is far more elegant as he fights off the other cats. The film version looks like a nude Elba with bad CGI fur glossed over him, and god bless him but I swear it’ll give you nightmares.
Sometimes it gets pretty frustrating having so many characters shuffle in and out so fast before they’re given a chance to be seriously developed, or really add to the film’s story. But the thing about Cats is that it’s based on a poetry book, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot (“Practical Cats” being the play’s first working title), so most of the structure is based around introducing various cats depicted in the poems going to the ball. And I can see how that works when one is watching live performers in the flesh, wearing costumes that are obviously fake but still represent the essence of a cat’s personality. But a lot was lost in translation while developing this film.
And I can’t even say that I hate or even dislike most of these characters. They’re just not being given a real narrative structure, or enough conflict and development outside of a few to justify so many lengthy musical numbers. The music is Andrew Lloyd Webber, so you may find yourself humming some of the songs as you leave the theater- especially if you’re a fan of that Broadway style. But the overall story of Cats is just plain odd, on or offstage, so translating that to the movies in a way that feels like satisfying cinema isn’t easy anyway. These production choices don’t really help matters.
So yeah, this thing is bad. Even though I’m far from being a Broadway expert, to me this did not feel like a good entry point for someone new to the Cats franchise. And that’s a shame really, because I can tell how passionate some of the actors were about this project. But on the whole, it doesn’t really work on that level, or on the level of being a coherent film story. Even though there were some liberties taken and changes made for the big screen, I’m not sure if the plot of Cats lends itself to a film script without a complete overhaul. It was designed to be live, for a totally different brand of audience interactions.
Personally, I think a show this legendary and creative deserves better. My call is if you’re part of the Jellicle tribe already, you might be morbidly curious about it, and you’ll likely love the soundtrack. For those just discovering it like me, all I can say is view at your own risk. However you felt about it, stop by Official_FAN at Twitter as always and share your thoughts!