Oh my.
Those two words sum up the movie musical "Cats," based on the famous Broadway show. The problem isn't the inspiration- a lot of the actual music here is pretty good. It certainly isn't the cast, which has fresh faces as well as veterans such as Judi Dench and Idris Elba. And it isn't the budget, which according to the trusty ol' internet, is just south of 100 million bucks.
No the problem here is the use of CGI and motion capture, which has the famous and unknown actors and actresses recognizable as human on the body of hairy, svelte cat bodies. It's a disturbing effect, where none of the characters appear quite right- something's off with every movement and every song; the world has a term for it, and that's the "uncanny valley." And here, it is terrifying.
It probably didn't help that I have never seen the original musical, or really heard any of the songs (the closest thing was a brief parody here or there), so I spent any time not gripping the arm of my leather reclining chair wondering what the hell was going on! Why are some cats magical and others aren't? Why are all the large sets only occasionally proportioned to the actors? Why are all the cats oversexualized, crawling up and down each other, breathing heavily? Why does the bad guy (Macavity, played by Elba with as much grace the CGI would allow) have wanted posters around the city? (Who placed them? The cat police??) Why does the "Jellicle Ball" reincarnate the cats? (Do they become humans? Or worse, human faces superimposed to actual cat bodies.)
It doesn't matter, ultimately, the plot that is. The songs are what people came for, and they're actually rather decent (considering it's about, well, cats). Here they're sung about as good as autotuning can help the ensemble cast.
There was obviously a lot of money here, but this is an overstuffed and underbaked holiday turkey that's incredibly difficult to review: what's good is actually, pretty good. But what's bad is downright unsettling.
Generally, every movie reviewed here is rated two "stars" by default, and the number is either increased or decreased depending on many factors. "Cats" lost one of those by being, well, scary. But it's so amazingly weird that there's never even the slightest dull moment- I watched with nonstop fascination at how misguided everything was. That's one "star" back. Congrats "Cats," you make it out of here with two. Go see it. Or don't. It all comes down to whether or not you want frightening experience you'll never forget for all the wrong reasons, just with catchy tunes.
It doesn't matter, ultimately, the plot that is. The songs are what people came for, and they're actually rather decent (considering it's about, well, cats). Here they're sung about as good as autotuning can help the ensemble cast.
There was obviously a lot of money here, but this is an overstuffed and underbaked holiday turkey that's incredibly difficult to review: what's good is actually, pretty good. But what's bad is downright unsettling.
Generally, every movie reviewed here is rated two "stars" by default, and the number is either increased or decreased depending on many factors. "Cats" lost one of those by being, well, scary. But it's so amazingly weird that there's never even the slightest dull moment- I watched with nonstop fascination at how misguided everything was. That's one "star" back. Congrats "Cats," you make it out of here with two. Go see it. Or don't. It all comes down to whether or not you want frightening experience you'll never forget for all the wrong reasons, just with catchy tunes.
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