Cats [2019]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Well, we did it. We finally watched "Cats." And we're here to tell you that it's probably not worth it to watch it yourself. The actual experience of watching "Cats" is fairly unpleasant, and I say this on both a musical level and a movie level. While none of us has actually see the musical on stage, I have enough of a musical theater background to know what it's about and that seeing it has been a regret of many friends of mine. So take what is already an utterly bizarre and silly musical without a plot and add uncanny valley CGI, less dancing, and worse singing, and you have something no reasonable person will want to sit through.

The plot of "Cats" can basically be summed up as: a bunch of cats sing songs about their lives for the opportunity to die and be reborn. The movie tried to give a little more plot to the story but only barely. They made Victoria, a dancing cat, the lost protagonist so the other cats can explain things to her. She gets a song and the actress playing her was clearly selected for her dancing. Macavity, the kinda-antagonist, kidnaps a bunch of the cats throughout instead of just Old Deuteronomy at the end. Otherwise, the story is kept kind of weirdly formless. Basically, the main crew of cats keeps wandering around the streets of London, encountering cats who need to sing their feelings and then they will often disappear from the scene right after. Mostly you are meant to be mesmerized by the singing, dancing, and visuals. At least they were right on with that last one but not for the right reasons.

I could go into detailing every painful moment from Rebel Wilson unzipping her cat skin to show more cat skin underneath to the fat jokes to the mouses with children's faces, but I won't bother. Go watch a YouTube review (I recommend Lindsay Ellis') and trust me on this.

Spoon Rating: 2

We wore cat ears for the occasion.

Now for some of the moods inflected by "Cats":




Amusement

Shock.

And numb horror.