Cats - a.k.a Pussy Galore - Review
I love cats.
Hopefully you will note that that is "cats" with a small "c" not to be confused with Cats, the nightmarish musical fever dream from man that most closely resembles a "what if the kiss from Princess and the Frog only worked halfway leaving a frog-human monster, Andrew Lloyd Webber.
(Fun fact - Estimated at having wealth in excess of $650 million, Lord Webber, Member of British House of Lords in 2015, despite having only exercised his House of Lords voting rights 30 times whilst having 1,898 opportunities to do so, rushed from America to England to vote for tax credit cuts, that if passed would have negatively affected the most impoverished members of society)
Normally with these reviews, I like to think I am somewhat impartial, although more often than not I am reviewing films that I have an interest in. I can't think of any that I've forced myself to watch against self-interest, or in this case self-preservation. Here however is the outlier.
I am letting the cat out of the bag (and you'll have to forgive me for the less than purrfect Cat puns that may be litter-trayed throughout this review, as the film certainly wasn't above vomitting up a few cat jokes) I hate musicals.
I've tried The Sound of Music (the only film where I've been cheering on the Nazis...)
Moulin Rouge (watching that on a small screen on a plane is like having a Madi Gras float smashed into your head).
Phantom of the Opera (I made the mistake of thinking the most recent film version was actually an adaptation of the book. I fucked up.)
The less said about Frozen the better, but even if you had a shred of affection towards that film, any goodwill towards it will have melted away after one Christmas shift at Myer.
My outliers for liking musicals can be neatly categorised bysome of the Disney classics, and for a proper musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. What sets these apart for me is that they balance actual plot and characterisation through dialogue and musical numbers. Particularly with Sweeney Todd, these aren't extravagant dancing through the street numbers, but fairly restrained back and forth songs between characters. Oh and it is also a fantastically gory and gothic horror flick.
Cats however is an unusual beast. Long have I had a requests to go see a film to absolutely tear into. And then the stars aligned - a critically maligned flop of a film, that also happens to be a musical. The film is currently a box office bomb and the distributors have quietly retracted the film from consideration for the Oscars.
What more could I want?
So, I banded together with some other intrepid moviegoers, in high hopes of a new cult classic of awfulness, (maybe The Room for musicals - having said that, I would happily watch a musical adaptation of The Room, if one doesn't already exist).
Let's start with the plot. Oh wait, there isn't one. What we have is a gloriously pristine white cat, Victoria (Francesa Hayward - I'll be naming and shaming throughout, although really the fault lies at Webber's presumably webbed feet), being dumped on the streets of London, before bumping into a cast of various types of cat, each getting their set piece singing scene. The aim being that there is some sort of X-Factor for cats going on, presided over my a Judi Dench cat (who appears to be wearing a fur coat, which would seem to mean that she has skinned a cat at some point), to go get another life. The other life being given by rising into the sky on hot air balloon and then...
Who the fuck knows? There is not plot, just our heroine (and I really paws to say she is the protagonist, she simply bumps and knocks into the plot as and when it comes up), and more just an excuse for musical numbers to be joined together. In fact, the film pretty much flicks up its tail at the audience in assuming that we should sympathise with Victoria, when in reality the emotional heart of the movie belongs to Jennifer Hudson's Grizabella, who gets to over emote over her one song, stretched across maybe three scenes. Just because the music is swelling and screams "TAKE ME SERIOUSLY" doesn't mean the audience are going to when you've given this character less screen time than the Invisible Man and you've stifled the rest of the musical with such excess and flamboyance.
Perhaps this story works best on stage, but nevertheless, none of the songs were ear worms in the slightest. And each song is also undermined through directorial choices, as for the vast majority of the film, the camera is spinning round like a cat-nip addled kitten, who's just been told there are various cups on tables that need to be kicked off. The director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech, Les Misérables) gives the film the quality of a cat, inasmuch as it can't sit still.
And now we get to the actual look of the cats. What is also interesting to note regarding the film is that work was being done on it up until the very day before its release. So horrifying were the initial reactions to the visual effects that if you are encouraged to see the film as a result of my review, or any other dark compulsion, the version you are seeing now is a somehow improved one to that which was released. (I've also done the reader a favour and kept this review picture-less, lest some sort of Dorian Gray or The Ring affect takes you over upon gazing up their works, and despairing.)
To be honest, the set design and visual effects are all actually great. The choreography too. However, this is like saying Dr Hannibal Lecter constructs well designed tableaus of terror, using human body parts - the end result is still to horrify but at least with the good doctor, that's the intention. With Cats, it doesn't matter how good the special effects are, the result is still monstrous. Most confusingly, the music often dips its tail into Gothic horror, which combined with human/cat hybrids prowling, NUZZLING each other, the images become truly monstrous.
Highlights of horror include:
I have one final confession. Our group was a less than respectful theatre group, with a growing cacophony of stifled laughter as things proceeded to it inexorable conclusion. I was, for the vast majority of the film, firmly on the side of horrified rather than hysteria, but by the end I finally succumbed to the atmosphere, the boiled frog principle, here an unknown, and growing madness, which most reminded me trying not to laugh in a high school class. But nope, a balloon with a cat in it, and Judi Dench earnestly imploring me on the correct way to address a cat finally broke me into tears of laughter.
So look, you've got what you wanted. You've made me watch this claw-ful film, with a fur-midable reputation. I hope you are feline very claw-ver about yourself now. Pur-haps you'll be un-fur-tunate, and also slink into your nearby cinema, and be rendered cat-atonic by the film. This is one cat that needs to be put down.
Hopefully you will note that that is "cats" with a small "c" not to be confused with Cats, the nightmarish musical fever dream from man that most closely resembles a "what if the kiss from Princess and the Frog only worked halfway leaving a frog-human monster, Andrew Lloyd Webber.
(Fun fact - Estimated at having wealth in excess of $650 million, Lord Webber, Member of British House of Lords in 2015, despite having only exercised his House of Lords voting rights 30 times whilst having 1,898 opportunities to do so, rushed from America to England to vote for tax credit cuts, that if passed would have negatively affected the most impoverished members of society)
Normally with these reviews, I like to think I am somewhat impartial, although more often than not I am reviewing films that I have an interest in. I can't think of any that I've forced myself to watch against self-interest, or in this case self-preservation. Here however is the outlier.
I am letting the cat out of the bag (and you'll have to forgive me for the less than purrfect Cat puns that may be litter-trayed throughout this review, as the film certainly wasn't above vomitting up a few cat jokes) I hate musicals.
I've tried The Sound of Music (the only film where I've been cheering on the Nazis...)
Moulin Rouge (watching that on a small screen on a plane is like having a Madi Gras float smashed into your head).
Phantom of the Opera (I made the mistake of thinking the most recent film version was actually an adaptation of the book. I fucked up.)
The less said about Frozen the better, but even if you had a shred of affection towards that film, any goodwill towards it will have melted away after one Christmas shift at Myer.
My outliers for liking musicals can be neatly categorised bysome of the Disney classics, and for a proper musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. What sets these apart for me is that they balance actual plot and characterisation through dialogue and musical numbers. Particularly with Sweeney Todd, these aren't extravagant dancing through the street numbers, but fairly restrained back and forth songs between characters. Oh and it is also a fantastically gory and gothic horror flick.
Cats however is an unusual beast. Long have I had a requests to go see a film to absolutely tear into. And then the stars aligned - a critically maligned flop of a film, that also happens to be a musical. The film is currently a box office bomb and the distributors have quietly retracted the film from consideration for the Oscars.
What more could I want?
So, I banded together with some other intrepid moviegoers, in high hopes of a new cult classic of awfulness, (maybe The Room for musicals - having said that, I would happily watch a musical adaptation of The Room, if one doesn't already exist).
Let's start with the plot. Oh wait, there isn't one. What we have is a gloriously pristine white cat, Victoria (Francesa Hayward - I'll be naming and shaming throughout, although really the fault lies at Webber's presumably webbed feet), being dumped on the streets of London, before bumping into a cast of various types of cat, each getting their set piece singing scene. The aim being that there is some sort of X-Factor for cats going on, presided over my a Judi Dench cat (who appears to be wearing a fur coat, which would seem to mean that she has skinned a cat at some point), to go get another life. The other life being given by rising into the sky on hot air balloon and then...
Who the fuck knows? There is not plot, just our heroine (and I really paws to say she is the protagonist, she simply bumps and knocks into the plot as and when it comes up), and more just an excuse for musical numbers to be joined together. In fact, the film pretty much flicks up its tail at the audience in assuming that we should sympathise with Victoria, when in reality the emotional heart of the movie belongs to Jennifer Hudson's Grizabella, who gets to over emote over her one song, stretched across maybe three scenes. Just because the music is swelling and screams "TAKE ME SERIOUSLY" doesn't mean the audience are going to when you've given this character less screen time than the Invisible Man and you've stifled the rest of the musical with such excess and flamboyance.
Perhaps this story works best on stage, but nevertheless, none of the songs were ear worms in the slightest. And each song is also undermined through directorial choices, as for the vast majority of the film, the camera is spinning round like a cat-nip addled kitten, who's just been told there are various cups on tables that need to be kicked off. The director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech, Les Misérables) gives the film the quality of a cat, inasmuch as it can't sit still.
And now we get to the actual look of the cats. What is also interesting to note regarding the film is that work was being done on it up until the very day before its release. So horrifying were the initial reactions to the visual effects that if you are encouraged to see the film as a result of my review, or any other dark compulsion, the version you are seeing now is a somehow improved one to that which was released. (I've also done the reader a favour and kept this review picture-less, lest some sort of Dorian Gray or The Ring affect takes you over upon gazing up their works, and despairing.)
To be honest, the set design and visual effects are all actually great. The choreography too. However, this is like saying Dr Hannibal Lecter constructs well designed tableaus of terror, using human body parts - the end result is still to horrify but at least with the good doctor, that's the intention. With Cats, it doesn't matter how good the special effects are, the result is still monstrous. Most confusingly, the music often dips its tail into Gothic horror, which combined with human/cat hybrids prowling, NUZZLING each other, the images become truly monstrous.
Highlights of horror include:
- Rebel Wilson's performing mice, with the face's of human children;
- Rebel Wilson devouring cockroaches with female faces;
- Mid-Jason Derulo number, which primarily seems to be about what a sexy cat he is, two cats lounge below a tap spraying them with a white liquid, I am told is milk.
- James Corden diving into a rubbish bin to find Jason Durelo clearly post-catus with two lady cats;
- WHY DO THE CATS HAVE BOSOMS AND HUMAN HANDS?!?
- Idris Elba's cat shedding his clothes in the finale, seeming more naked than any other cat, and kidnapping Judi Dench (I now concede this is the closest he will ever get to the Bond role alongside M);
- Ian McKellen's tattered thespian serenading Judi Dench, whilst she gives him "come to basket" eyes before extending her leg skyward; and
- Taylor Swift trying to sex kitten it up, whilst struggling with an English accent.
I have one final confession. Our group was a less than respectful theatre group, with a growing cacophony of stifled laughter as things proceeded to it inexorable conclusion. I was, for the vast majority of the film, firmly on the side of horrified rather than hysteria, but by the end I finally succumbed to the atmosphere, the boiled frog principle, here an unknown, and growing madness, which most reminded me trying not to laugh in a high school class. But nope, a balloon with a cat in it, and Judi Dench earnestly imploring me on the correct way to address a cat finally broke me into tears of laughter.
So look, you've got what you wanted. You've made me watch this claw-ful film, with a fur-midable reputation. I hope you are feline very claw-ver about yourself now. Pur-haps you'll be un-fur-tunate, and also slink into your nearby cinema, and be rendered cat-atonic by the film. This is one cat that needs to be put down.
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