We at The Movie Buff pride ourselves on being open minded, free thinking, film enthusiasts. 2019 has been a pretty good year for film overall. Many boundary pushing, emotionally resonant, and truly creative films were released over the past year. Some got mixed reviews, some were universally praised, and then… then there’s “Cats.” Tom Hopper’s “Cats” (2019) has been trashed and put down in ways I haven’t seen a movie put down, maybe ever. This film has been universally panned by audiences and critics alike. Much like Victoria in the opening scene, this film has been thrown out onto the cold hard ground, disowned with nowhere else to go.
Well, come on in “Cats,” because guess what? I liked it. You heard me — I LIKED CATS. I’ve seen it twice, of my own free will, and I’ll see it a third time when the film is… re-released to complete unfinished visual effects. No, the film isn’t perfect, but hey guess what? — it’s also not the abomination of cinema some hyperbolic critics say it is. It’s a bold creative vision that, at least in my case, grabs you by the eyes, doesn’t hold your hand, and to be quite honest, doesn’t seem to give a damn about things most other films would. Things like, whether or not you understand what’s going on. Clearly most critics didn’t appreciate this direction. I freaking loved It.
I’m a big anime fan. I swear this is important. Because when you get into anime you learn to accept all kinds of bizarre concepts and ideas. One of my favorite anime series, “Soul Eater,” follows the adventures of a high school where the students are all paired up. Some students are weapons, some are the wielders of these weapons. When I say that some students are weapons, of course I mean this literally. The students can turn into weapons. Guns, swords, scythes, etc. Sounds ridiculous…yet, it’s a great story. One more example and then I’ll get to the point. “Hellsing Ultimate,” an action packed anime series about Dracula defending London from a horde of Nazi Vampires with mystical powers. One of the Nazis — for instance — uses a musket with bullets that can, seemingly of their own will, track a target and change their trajectories. It’s over the top, it’s completely outlandish, it’s bold. It’s unique. It’s fun. A story about a group of cats vying for the chance to be reborn by singing songs that tell their own personal stories and explain what it is they want their new life to be? I can handle it.
Now, it’s probably around this point that you’re all wondering, “Is this guy for real? When is he going to drop the act?” Oh, there’s no act my friends. I don’t like “Cats” ironically, is not “so bad it’s good.” I like this film on its own merits. I think it accomplishes what it set out to accomplish, and I think much of the hate for the film stems from people who are unwilling to let the film be what it is. Many people probably didn’t know what to expect. This film doesn’t give you a chance to breathe, it doesn’t stop to catch you up or make sure you’re comfortable. It’s a rollercoaster ride of outlandish and cool visual moments, classic show-tunes, CGI, and soundstage sets.
“Many people probably didn’t know what to expect. This film doesn’t give you a chance to breathe, it doesn’t stop to catch you up or make sure you’re comfortable.”
The sets themselves are really cool. Everything is oversized to make the cats themselves look small. Each location fits the personality of the cat singing and makes a perfect backdrop for the song the cats sing. The Milk Bar that Rum Tum Tugger slides through during his number is lit up with neon and fits the cool upbeat R&B vibe his song gives off. It’s important to note that these sets are purely aesthetic, they aren’t real world locations as much as they are backdrops to the stories being told. The exact proportions of the cats relative to their environment may change from song to song — don’t freak out. That’s perfectly fine. The idea is to get across the personality of the cat, the backgrounds and sets are simply a vehicle through which the film expresses itself. To complain about the proportions of the cats on these sets is to miss the point entirely. Anyway…
The 1-2 punch of “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” — which leads into “The Naming of Cats” and “The Old Gumbie Cat” — is a whirlwind of color sound and it asks a lot of the audience immediately. It came across as a direct challenge. As if the film itself was trying to be as inaccessible as possible, like an angry bull trying to throw off a rodeo cowboy. Gumbie Cat, played by Rebel Wilson, throws so much at you all at once and it’s incredible. Then without taking a single breath, Jason Durulo shows up and now we’re on the “The Rum Tum Tugger” express. This R&B jam explores the headspace of those cats that never want what you give them. You know how you’ll let a cat into the house, and five seconds later, they’re pawing at the door again? It’s like, ‘I just let you in, if you wanted to be outside why did you beg to be let in?’ That’s what this song is about. And even though Durulo could stand to enunciate a bit more, he’s clearly giving it his all and having a ball.
This is the part where I say that the acting…is pretty good. Rebel Wilson and James Corden are in their elements and have a little shine time around their respective songs. Corden himself, playing a 25-pound fat cat named Bustopher Jones, has what I think are some of the best comedic lines in the whole film. Jenifer Hudson as Grizabella, The Glamour Cat, is an emotional and powerful presence whenever she’s on screen. This film does a great job of keeping the audience just off center enough to never know how seriously to take the film. The actors, from Ian Mckellen to Taylor Swift, all give this film their all. Taylor Swift, who plays Idris Elba’s new partner in crime, does an amazing job during her musical number. The real issue here is Hopper’s direction.
Maybe there’s a production-based reason for the rapid fire editing style and lack of fluidity between shot types, but in a musical film that focuses so much on dance and movement, it would be nice to be able to focus on the dancers for more than a few seconds in this adaptation of a stage play. Obviously if this was on stage there would be no cuts, no edits, or close ups. I know Hopper knows how to direct musical adaptations: he was the mind behind “Les Misérables” as well; I can only assume there was some external reason he needed to edit the way he did.
The same way I don’t understand the reliance on CGI bodies over real world costumes. So much of the initial hatred of the film, and to be fair, a lot of curiosity, started with the first trailer. The faces looked like they were hovering in front of the heads they were meant to be attached to. A lot would have been fixed by simply making physical costumes. To be perfectly honest, the biggest problem I have with the film is that they decided to go with a motion capture fur-suit. What is the point of collecting these A-list actors and actresses, of assembling some world class dancers, and then mo-capping them and wrapping the mo-cap in digital fur so that the movement of the dancing looks computer generated? The film would have been improved exponentially if they had simply let the dancers dance in costumes. I appreciate the ambition, really I do. But sometimes the traditional way is best.
“I cannot stress enough how much I appreciate this movie. I appreciate its willingness to just go for it. To just go for every idea it has no matter how bold or strange or out of the ordinary.”
There are also issues with some of the sound mixing in the film. The entire point of casting Jennifer Hudson was to get a powerhouse performance of “Memories.” We get that, of course, but the backing track is competing with Hudson during the emotional height of the song. It might not ruin it entirely, but it deflates the power her performance could have had. I do still really love that they record the sound live. There is no perfect pre-recording of the song for the actors to lip sync over — they were double mic’d and every imperfection in their voices was captured. It worked in “Les Misérables” and it works here as well.
To wrap this up, I cannot stress enough how much I appreciate this movie. I appreciate its willingness to just go for it. To just go for every idea it has no matter how bold or strange or out of the ordinary. I appreciate its visual weirdness, its unapologetically sexual nature, the odd timbre of the instruments used in the backing tracks of many of the musical numbers. I enjoyed this movie for the same reasons I enjoyed “The Lighthouse” or “Sorry to Bother You.” Because we need more unapologetic weirdness. We need more films like “Cats.” Films that just ooze creativity, that might just be a little too creative… Because while most of the time they flop, every now and then we get one that is truly great! Was “Cats” this truly amazing film? No, of course not. But I can’t help but respect the audacious bravery with which it pursued its ideas, visually, narratively, or otherwise. So there.
