“Cats” Reviews! It’s at 8% on Rotten Tomatoes!

“ In all honesty, this critic is still struggling to find the words to rationalise what transpires in this baffling film. It’s jawdropping for all the wrong reasons. The experience of watching Cats is like dropping some acid, popping down to your local pet store, and watching as the animals all burst into song and dance. And I use that plural because this film doesn’t just contain singing and dancing cats. Oh, no. Prepare yourself for a tapdancing line of cockroaches and a floor show performed by a troupe of mice. All with human faces. Truly, what did I just watch?”

Here's my fave:

"First off, full disclosure - I am not a cat person. Second off - after watching this frankly mortifying film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, I'm not altogether sure I am a movie person anymore either."

I'd like to read a review by someone who has seen Cats previously and enjoyed it. Because we already know watching Cats is like dropping acid - this isn't new information, people.

The CGI is not finished. Universal must have just run out of patience.

“ I witnessed an entire man, knit cap and coat, just standing in a scene among a gathering of cats. I saw a terrifying gray statue looming over a character, only for it to blink and realize it’s a woman who is a cat, but they colored her and then forgot to add fur. In one scene, nearly all of Judi Dench’s hand is a fluffy blond like her the coat of her cat character, Deuteronomy. In another, it’s just her regular hand, replete with what appears to be a wedding ring.”

Even poor Judi Dench can't save this piece of shit.

She doesn't't have a lot of material with which to work, R5. The source material is an overrated piece of shit as well.

Many people make fun of the stage show but I enjoy it. It’s an entertaining theatrical experience with some lovely music. Having said that, I’m not sure making a film was a good idea. There are some shows that don’t benefit from closeups.

When I saw “Cats” at a preview screening the other night, something happened toward the end that I’ve never actually experienced at a movie before. It came as the legendary British actress Judi Dench, digitally pixelated into a giant orange tabby named Old Deuteronomy, spoke-sung the lyrics of the final number, “The Ad-dressing of Cats.” As Dame Judi carefully enunciated each verse, then paused, then started a new verse, the audience began to titter. Then laugh. Then roar. Because each pause seemed to signal — at long last — the film’s end, each new verse became a fresh source of hilarity. It was that rare occurrence: a packed theater going the full “Springtime for Hitler” and giving release to blessed, hard-earned mockery.

Cats is a 110-minute exercise in disbelieving your own eyes, in feeling yourself becoming gradually unmoored from basic concepts like "time" and "space" and "reality." Have you ever wondered what it feels like to try and gaslight yourself? Watch Cats, and you might get a taste.

I've always enjoyed the original poems. The musical was clever but never really matched the joy that the poems evoke.

Even the positive reviews are weird-

[quote]I gasped with laughter, I covered my face, I pulled at my hair, I clasped my hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. Cats had broken me, and I'd never felt happier.

--Angie Han, Mashable

The trailer ruined it for everyone.

It doesn’t even matter if the movie is good or not

A (sort of) confusing negative review

[quote]The intended humour mostly falls flat (lame jokes like "cat got your tongue" are neither funny nor logical), but there's something in the garish, glorious failure of it that can absolutely be enjoyed. It is unbelievable that it even exists.

These are exactly the kind of negative reviews that will turn it into a "must see". Perhaps a cult classic.

Movie musicals are dead. There hasn't been a good one in years!

Dreamgirls - it ends with a slack jawed Jamie Foxx staring at the stage and wondering if fugly Jennifer Hudson really gave birth to his child

Chicago - I had an epileptic seizure watching all the jerky cuts in that movie to make it look like Squinty Zellwegger could dance

Into The Woods - Holy Christ, Meryl chewed so much scenery, I thought she was going to jump out of the screen and start chomping the theater seats.

[QUOTE]These are exactly the kind of negative reviews that will turn it into a "must see". Perhaps a cult classic.

Exactly. I wasn't the least bit interested in this film but now I can't wait to watch it!

If they're quick about it, they can hire some porn actors to spice the movie up a bit.

Another reviewer repeats a theme from other reviews

[quote] There is something magical about the simple fact that this movie exists, in all its obscene, absurd wonder, its terrible filmmaking choices and bursts of jaw-dropping talent.

r8 Okay, now that's fucking funny. Can't wait to watch the cam version when it hits the web.

I'd post the CNN review link, but DL's been rejecting CNN links for a month or two now.

Here's some of the text:

(CNN)"Cats" isn't quite the unmitigated disaster that some feared -- or perversely hoped -- but it's not good, delivering a mostly incoherent adaptation of the long-running musical. An eclectic roster of stars claw out a few meager moments, but as screen experiences go, this is a memory best forgotten. To be fair, the challenge facing director/co-writer Tom Hooper ("Les Miserables") was perhaps insurmountable, to the extent that Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical has always been more about spectacle and the theatrical experience than story. The near-absence of a plot might work well enough in a live context, but in a movie, it's an awfully tedious way to spend time for those with only one life. The approach to that dilemma hinged heavily on the production design, creating a cat-centric world scaled to make the actors look kitty sized. That's then augmented with lots of energetic song and dance, the latter exploding in bouts of movement that resemble a furry ballet. The requisite magic, however, never materializes, as the cats assemble for their annual Jellicle Ball, where they vie for the great honor of a new life, to be bestowed by the venerable Old Deuteronomy, somehow proving that Judi Dench can look dignified and regal under even the most ridiculous of circumstances.

As great a composer as Lloyd Weber is, his compositions set to T.S. Eliot's poems, while lovely, are invariably more episodic than cohesive. Those qualities -- and flaws -- are magnified under the camera's unforgiving eye.

I know what I’m doing this weekend: popping a couple edibles and grabbing an Uber to the nearest movie theatre.

The Guardian points out that the sound was finished just 36 hours before premiere, so it is definitely a rushed product. However, he claims the digital effects were finished, they were just unfinished in the first trailer:

Tom Hooper’s much hyped, fluorescent film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage smash began shooting last December, wrapped at the beginning of April, and has been mired in allegedly complex post-production ever since. “Allegedly” seems an unnecessary qualifier, in fact, given what the trailer already revealed as early as July. Coating a vast ensemble of human stars and dancers in fluid, tactile feline pelts was never going to be a simple task: “digital fur technology”, as we’ve been instructed to call it, wasn’t built in a day. And it hasn’t just been the visuals consuming time: word has it that multiple Soho sound studios were booked out last week in a concentrated push to finish the film’s busy audio mix.

The delay has, it seems, come at some cost to the film’s awards season momentum. Most critics’ groups didn’t get to see the film in time for their voting deadlines, though even in the best of circumstances, their tastes tend to skew more highbrow. More imperative was meeting the cutoff for Golden Globes voting. A not-quite-finished cut was shown to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, known for supporting razzle-dazzle musicals such as The Greatest Showman and Burlesque, but with dispiriting results: the effort yielded only one nomination, for Taylor Swift’s original song Beautiful Ghosts. Even that seemingly surefire Oscars bid was shot down this week, as the Academy announced their shortlists for several categories: Swift’s mournful ballad was nowhere to be seen among the 15 best song finalists, though the visual effects are still in contention.

The internet’s gleefully aghast reaction didn’t prompt the kind of studio panic, rethink and redesign that we recently saw with Sonic the Hedgehog, but Hooper claims that some tweaking was done in response: “The visual effects [in the trailer] were at quite an early stage,” he told Empire magazine. “Possibly there were, in the extremity in some of the responses, some clues in how to keep evolving. When you watch the finished film, you’ll see that some of the designs of the cats have moved on since then, and certainly our understanding of how to use the technology to make them work has gone up, too.”

Ooh, and the actual review:

"Cats review – a purr-fectly dreadful hairball of woe " - ONE STAR!

I'll spare you the actual review, since he wrote it in poetry prose for some reason, but you can read it at the link if you wish.

i see the movie trailer/previews and it just "creeps me out"! and i find myself looking at the crotches of both the male and female "cats" and finding nothing there! lol!...

I'd like to mention I despise Taylor Swift, so I'm nastily happy that this flopped. BOX OFFICE POISON TAYLOR SWIFT

It was enough for me that Swift's shameless Oscar-grab song didn't even make the first round of cuts with the Academy, but I am enjoying this low RT score.

Where’s Lynn Stairmaster to tell us how many Oscars it’s gonna win?

[quote]i see the movie trailer/previews and it just "creeps me out"! and i find myself looking at the crotches of both the male and female "cats" and finding nothing there!

But they still put titties on the female cats! Which is also creepy.

(CNN)Taylor Swift was not inspired by any of her three cats for her role in "Cats." Instead, she said, she's more the "feral" type.

Swift plays Bombalurina, and in order to prepare for the film, an adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-running musical, the cast attended cat school.

"We were learning how to move like cats, we learned a lot of choreography," Swift told Entertainment Weekly. The singer said the cast sang and danced 12 hours a day to prepare.

The film premiered Monday at Lincoln Center in New York City, where Swift described her character as "athletic" and "feral."

"My cats are beautifully round and fuzzy and they look like little lazy bears, they're always taking naps," she said. "They're not really the kind of cat that I'm playing."

Semi-relatedly, here's an article on T.S. Elliot's antisemitism:

They should have cast Mel Gibson as Adolph the Nazi Cat.

flopsville! not enuf ethnics !!

Reminds me of this phone game from years ago...

r32 you should chain yourself to the theater and vow not to move or eat until they reshoot it with more! Go! Now!! Do it! We'll wait here!

If Donald Trump wants to keep out immigrants, show this film on the border wall.

You know in the future this will become a cult classic. People are going to gather over bongs and adore the shit out of this movie. I can just see midnight showings at rundown theaters where people show up in costume and act out parts of the film. I'm calling it now.

Yeah, I saw the trailer, it's an unsettling and deranged histrionic musical nightmare. And that's just the trailer. Unsettling. When I got home I couldn't even look at my own cats.

From another review

[quote] At my screening, the audience periodically broke out into contagious fits of giggling at moments that weren't overtly comedic. I can't speak to what others were thinking in that moment, but for my part, the feeling I was expressing wasn't so much contempt as the delirium that comes from extreme confusion.

[quote] And yet, I can't deny the sheer exhilaration of seeing how far I could push my own imagination. Cats is a 110-minute exercise in disbelieving your own eyes, in feeling yourself becoming gradually unmoored from basic concepts like "time" and "space" and "reality."

Sad. This cat doesn't even have 9[%] lives.

Sounds like a train wreck.

they warned us the director and the casting were hideous…..and they were right.

[quote] Movie musicals are dead. There hasn't been a good one in years!

The Phantom of the Opera (2004) was one of the worst pieces of dreck I have ever seen in the theater. I fell asleep!

do you mean 18%?

Def going to get really high and watch this.

The LA Times took this flaming garbage scow of a movie out to sea and sunk it.

'Cats' Is A Cats-Tastrophe, It's A-Paw-Ling, And I Loved It

...Looking like a drag interpretation of the Cowardly Lion, Oscar-winner Dame Judi Dench speaks directly to the audience in a terrifying moment of absurdity and performs "The Ad-dressing of the Cats" as a languid soliloquy.

It doesn't work. Most of the film feels like a series of increasingly frantic vignettes that result in a patchwork quilt of horrors. Dench staring lifelessly down the camera, cloaked in digital fur, is now my sleep paralysis demon.

another taylor swift fail......hip hip hoooooray

her boobs are the talk of the net, very not rite and pervy wrong. lady breasts on a cat???? who okd this??????

[quote] The LA Times took this flaming garbage scow of a movie out to sea and sunk it.

It did do that, but guess which DL icon remained unscathed? Guess!

[quote] For sheer musical proficiency, Taylor Swift is unsurprisingly best in show as Macavity’s henchwoman Bombalurina; she and Lloyd Webber also wrote an original song for the movie, “Beautiful Ghosts,” which the engaging Hayward shapes into an affecting rejoinder to the show’s signature tune, “Memory.”

why wasn't harry styles in it? he could have saved this piece of shit.

LLOYD WEBBER STUPIDITY

Taylor Swift's song from Cats, Beautiful Ghosts, is nominated for a Golden Globe, but it was completely snubbed in the Oscar shortlist for Best Song competition. She co-wrote it with A.L. Webber.

R4 R47

Bad CGI = taking out Jason Derulo's huge dick

[quote] The Guardian points out that the sound was finished just 36 hours before premiere, so it is definitely a rushed product.

Sweetie, do you think they started working on the sound last week? They have been working on it for months. That fact they went to the deadline does not mean it's rushed.

Holy Shit! I can’t wait! I did not want to see this, but I’m with r21

At least Madonna's first film appearance was well-received in Desperately Seeking Susan.

I don't buy Derulo's big dick pic. He has already said they filmed wearing skin tight green costumes that showed everything and when the behind the scenes come out on home video and nothing much there, he can claim they CGI'd it out. Sounds like over compensating to me.

[quote] The LA Times took this flaming garbage scow of a movie out to sea and sunk it.

Justin Chang is delightfully bitchy. Favorite film critic at the moment.

Lloyd Webber has released a response:

[quote] Sweetie, do you think they started working on the sound last week? They have been working on it for months. That fact they went to the deadline does not mean it's rushed.

Read r4. It sounds like they released it unfinished.

Still more interesting than Star Wars.

r55, Madonna played herself in DSS. What acting ability!

R52 I can't believe Buzzfeed still uses the "...I'm not sure how I feel about it" to talk down to their readers. Huffpost used that quite often and was mocked mercilessly on DL.

More reviews from Rottentomatoes. Run-of-the-mill bad movies don't get these kinds of reviews, so it must be Special. Or "Special."

[quote] The ultimate effect of the neon and glitter-drenched CGI extravaganza is Hellraiser 2 by way of Roald Dahl, a family entertainment spectacularly drunk on its own supply of batshit.

[quote] Will live on in every viewer's memory, now and forever. Its weirdness is unforgettable.

I am protecting myself from seeing this whole thing.

It's like when Crawford told Agent Starling, "Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head."

One of my favorite reviews-

"Perhaps Hooper and co expected it to look something like the photorealistic creatures of Disney’s The Lion King, but the effect is truly horrifying, like a Snapchat filter created by David Cronenberg.”

For fuck's sake, the actual stage show is a acid trip with singing and dancing cats in a junkyard. How anyone would think a movie version would be any different is a mystery. But people make such big deals out things like these. It's just a two hour entertainment, or time killer or diversion from life. Anyone who forsakes a chemo session for it will be highly disappointed.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Looking forward to seeing this at the Litter Box Theater.

r53 Darling, did you read the fucking article? They had to hire multiple sound studios at the last minute because they didn't have it done yet. So yeah, RUSHED is a proper word.

[quote]word has it that multiple Soho sound studios were booked out last week in a concentrated push to finish the film’s busy audio mix.

Honestly, the last good musicals were the Disney movies from the early to mid 90s.

r67 it sounds like it's being hated by audiences, as well.

Stoners might like it.

So... like “Showgirls”?

(I loved the Broadway version.)

Chang:

“I remember / the time I knew what happiness was,” Grizabella sings. You will remember it, too, and you will know it again once you have ascended to your own Heaviside Layer, located just beyond the light of the exit sign.

R72, no. Showgirls had moments of actual satire (crass and hilarious) and moments that were embarrassingly flat (and also hilarious). Cats sounds like it is just the latter. And at least Showgirls had great cinematography. Cats seems to look like a home video on an acid trip (in a bad way).

Showgirls had sexy naked people.

[quote]Chicago - I had an epileptic seizure watching all the jerky cuts in that movie to make it look like Squinty Zellwegger could dance.

Bless you r15 it drove me crazy listening to everyone praising that piece of shit.

What probably will prevent "Cats" from ascending to the Valhalla of camp classics like "Showgirls" "Mommie Dearest" and "Valley of the Dolls" is that those films tend to have a misogyny which gays ironically celebrate.

It could be a minor camp classic like in the realm of "Xanadu."

Showgirls isn't just appreciated as camp by gay people. It's appreciated from people from all walks of life, whether they be a billionaire or street walker. That's the sign of a true classic.

James Corden is. not. funny. Never has been never will be

Jennifer Hudson was in Idol the other night and sang "Memory".

R79, the minute I saw him in the trailer is the minute I knew the movie wasn't funny. He's just fucking annoying like a fucking wind-up toy that never stops. He thinks he's the funniest person in the room but I've heard he's (shocker!) a real prick in his private life and a nightmare to deal with (think: Ellen Degeneres).

I predict an uptick in enrollment in dance classes among the youths.

He offered you parts in Cats? I thought you hated Cats. You said it was an all time low in a lifetime of theatre going. You said, "Aeschylus did not invent the theatre to have it end up a bunch of chorus kids in cat suits prancing around wondering which of them will go to kitty-cat heaven."

[quote]Showgirls isn't just appreciated as camp by gay people. It's appreciated from people from all walks of life, whether they be a billionaire or street walker. That's the sign of a true classic.

Not to mention [italic]Cats[/italic] will never have a Basic Cable Digital Bra Edition.

R84, i DO hope they remove James Corden from the movie. Digitally, of course. Maybe paste someone else's body over his?

[quote]I predict an uptick in enrollment in dance classes among the youths.

This movie is, indeed, made for children. As if the future generations aren't proving to be fucked up enough ALREADY!!

[quote]Dench staring lifelessly down the camera, cloaked in digital fur, is now my sleep paralysis demon.

OMFG

Has Cynthia Erivo weighed in yet?

I love you, Tess/r83.

I'm glad to see this is getting ripped to shreds, because it features some of the most annoying people ever (James Corden, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson...) I also hope this takes Tom Hooper's enormous ego down a few notches.

But on the other hand it also features people like Francesca Hayward and Robbie Fairchild: these two are far too talented to be waltzing around covered in CGI fur in a shitfest like this.

I can't wait for the Starlight Express movie next year starring Pia Zadora and Lizzo.

[quote] Showgirls had sexy naked people.

Well, it had naked people.

Jellicle piss and jellicle crap

Jellicle

Jellicle piss and jellicle crap

[quote]But on the other hand it also features people like Francesca Hayward and Robbie Fairchild: these two are far too talented to be waltzing around covered in CGI fur in a shitfest like this. ' But they are Blanche, they are waltzing around covered in CGI fur in a shitfest like this.

Now I'm glad I passed on CATS.

All Andrew Lloyd Webber movie adaptations are a horrible mess, the source material (his shows) are shit.

You can't polish a turd.

I wish a real Broadway musical star was in this, like Lauren Bacall.

Yeah, she'd be great in this!

Between the reviews for Cats and the reviews for Star Wars seems the best show at the Cineplex this Holiday season is "Schadenfreude."

Good one 98

The new Black Christmas movie has much better reviews than Cats.

But the reviews for Cats are perversely inviting.

It seems Exorist II bad rather than Showgirls bad. The first kind is far worse. If you don't go into it knowing it's shit beforehand, you may get pissed off and throw things at the screen...and then burn down the movie theater. And then find the executives responsible for greenlighting the movie.

LOL r95 :)

r98 don't forget Trump's Impeachment. Merry Holidaymas!

How long before this is resurrected as a cult class? About the time Charles Manson is known (mostly) for his music.

*classic. Excuse me.

My only hope is that more negative reviews come out about Taylor Swift and her stupid song and make her cry.

Thank you for reminding me what is important, R107.

The day weed is legalized, this movie will find its audience.

[quote] I wish a real Broadway musical star was in this, like Lauren Bacall.

I wanted them to film it while I was alive! I asked them to rewrite "Hearts, Not Diamonds" just for this as "Mice, Not Catnip"!

R110 I want to give you a kiss

Am I the only person who remembers that this is the SECOND film of Cats? The stage version with Elaine Page was professionally filmed for theatrical release with the original stage costuming, make up and sets and released in theaters in 1998 and later shown on PBS. It was abridged to approximately 90 minutes with no intermission. It has a 77 percent approval rating at iMDB although only 20% at Rotten Tomatoes.

My parents saw it in London (1983). Their reaction: "One great song, but that's about it. Nothing has changed.

Random: for some reason that I can't really explain, I think Siouxsie Sioux would be really good in this. No, really. I think she'd be better than any of the other cast members. And I'd rather hear her sing at 80 years old than Taylor Swift, who is as vanilla and bland as they come.

is Derulo gay? he screams queen on ev talk show ive seen him on, when asked about his iideal woman, he sinks into the floor....

CATS! The Broadway musical brought three generations of my family together during a day out in Manhattan.

My parents, grandparents, brother, uncles and sister found CATS THE MUSICAL was something that allowed us to bridge our differences and it brought us all together finding commonality and agreement in how much we were disappointed, angry, confused and resentful at having to sit through such a dreadful, overhyped, nightmarish piece of crap. Yikes! It was bad.

Who in the world thought this would make a good cinematic experience?

Forget waterboarding for interrogating prisoners. Force 'em to sit through endless screenings of CATS. You'll get the answers to your questions.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone:

This all-star, all-awful screen take on the smash Broadway musical easily scores as the worst movie of the year and arguably the decade. Cats shouldn't happen to a dog.

[quote]R112 The stage version with Elaine Page was professionally filmed for theatrical release with the original stage costuming, make up and sets and released in theaters in 1998

But that was a cast of Brit nobodies.

All this fuss and it will be on 4K / Blu-ray / DVD in 90 days.

I hope they show this on Imax, I want to see this shitfest in the biggest screen possible.

loved the play, both in nyc and in London, where I tricked with one of the dancers....he had been with the royal ballet,

cant get the image of dumb fug taylor swifty and her kitty kat boobies.....hee haw....

James Corden at R119

In order for this to be a camp classic, someone must come up with a script to follow that tells everyone what to say to the screen and when to throw things, like Rocky Horror.

[quote]I tricked with one of the dancers....he had been with the royal ballet,

His self-esteem must have been in the gutter. Going from dancing Swan Lake for the Queen to dancing Rum Tum Tugger for fat American tourists.

So lemme get this straight. Taylor Swift wrote an original song to shoehorn into this cockamamie shitfest? The idea made me cackle, but also roll my eyes.

That greedy cunt isn’t rich ENOUGH? For that reason alone (although there are many many others!), I hope this thing disappears off the face of the earth.

Think about the fact that the dorkiness of "Cats" was a recurring joke on "Caroline in the City."

If "Caroline in the City," of all shows, could act superior to something else cultural, you know just how incredibly horrible that something else would truly have to be.

It sucked in the late 80s. Why would it be better now?

[quote] So lemme get this straight. Taylor Swift wrote an original song to shoehorn into this cockamamie shitfest? The idea made me cackle, but also roll my eyes.

[quote]That greedy cunt isn’t rich ENOUGH? For that reason alone (although there are many many others!), I hope this thing disappears off the face of the earth.

It’s a blatant attempted Oscar grab.

(She won’t get it, though)

me..

She can’t get it, now, R130. She didn’t qualify for the shortlist. And yet Beyoncé’s equally terrible song still did. They’ll probably just give it to the song to Harriet as a consolation prize to Cynthia Erivo.

I think I was at the same screening as the Boston Globe critic, because he described my exact experience. A ton of people walked out, and those who stayed openly mocked the performers. I hated the movie, but kind of felt bad for the actors when that happened.

'stay away from Nuryev….he kicks unpredictably, like a wild animal...'

swan lake with dame Fonteyn

partys 4 days....

I laughed, I cried, it was better than "Ca... oh, wait!

I saw it and thought it was...just fine. Not great, but not terrible except for the parts with Rebel Wilson and James Corden. I also am now crushing on Laurie Davidson who is like a better looking Timothee Chalamet. Not a fan of Taylor Swift but her song, and performance was one of the highlights of the movie.

[quote]Honestly, the last good musicals were the Disney movies from the early to mid 90s.

Uh humm........

[quote]It could be a minor camp classic like in the realm of "Xanadu."

Ohhhh maybe they will adapt it as a Broadway show like they did to "Xanadu" too!

Working on a sequel already....

Half the cast is ugly to begin with and then add their faces to the creepy cat thing and it's hard to watch

It’s not a great work of cinema, by any means. Some of the directorial choices are bizarre, the orchestrations are a missed opportunity, and having each character narrate their own song (rather than have them described by others, as was originally done) makes it even more dramatically inert than the musical’s flimsy book already is.

But I had a more enjoyable time and thought it had more artistic ambition and merit than anything I’ve seen from the fucking MCU, or any other CGI Disney nonsense I’ve seen this year.

I kind of hope it doesn't flop because then we will just end up with more super hero movies and movies aimed at males age 18-24.

[quote]I saw it and thought it was...just fine. Not great, but not terrible except for the parts with Rebel Wilson and James Corden.

Of course the fat ones, Datalounge never disappoints.

I think it will be a hit and have legs like The Greatest show.

Cats was one of the first musicals I ever saw on Broadway. I was 13 or so and just starting to take an interest in musical theater, so my parents figured Cats would be a great show to take me to see, considering the ubiquitous long running commercials that played on the local tv channels here in NY. I will never forget their faces after sitting through two and a half hours of that shitshow. My dad was like “well... that was something. Let’s go home”.

Last year I produced a docuseries for SiriusXM with Andrew Lloyd Webber, so I decided to revisit Cats. Watched the concert version on YouTube. Boy it was just as tedious to watch as it was on Broadway 25 years ago.

Straight to The Heavyside Lair with this malarkey!

Apparently, Dame Judi Dench has the most unintentionally funny(camp) scene in the film, and it happens at the very end of the film when the audience can't wait to get out of the theater:

"Dench sings the very, very, very long closing number, “Finale: The Ad-Dressing of Cats,” directly to the audience. That’s right, she is addressing the cats but looking at us. And it goes on forever. With every new verse, the audience at my screening laughed harder."

She also puts one of her CGI cat legs behind her head in a very suggestive pose.

It's a shame that Madonna isn't in this. She would make it all make sense in some perverted way.

R146, it would have been like this, but with cat CGI. The cone-bras would remain. Corden and Swift would be the backup dancers.

The most disappointing aspect of this film was how boring it was. I was expecting a great unintentional comedy but when you have actors like Rebel Wilson and James Corden try so hard, it becomes less fun, and more uncomfortable. All attempts at physical comedy just fell flat. The CGI was bad, not awesomely bad as I had hoped, but just cheap looking. During closeups, you would just forget the CGI and think they were wearing fur coats or something equally ridiculous.

There were genuinely good moments scattered about though. In the end, I wanted it to be good, but there is just way too much filler. The Jellicle Song for Cats, Mccavity, Mr Mistoflees, The Rum Tum Tugger, Beautiful Ghosts, and Memory were all memorable and had some interesting choreography. The cast was generally good.

To be honest, not understanding the "worst ever" type of comments. It could have been better, but there was enough good to redeem it.

The CGI cat costumes are not worst we've seen. But not better than say 1939's Cowardly Lion. Is it just me or does Jennifer Hudson have neither the range nor the phrasing required by Memory?

You think the score wasn't arranged/keys changed ???

The only cast member who I kept picturing naked was Idris Elba because his was the only costume that matched his skin tone.

R126 made me laugh out loud. Supremely bitchy finesse.

Best quote I've heard so far is "Cats is the worst thing to happen to cats since dogs."

YOU QUEENS ARE THE REASON THEY MADE THIS PIECE OF SHIT!!!! IF YOU FAGS DIDN'T STOP BUYING TICKETS TO THAT GOD DAMN MUSICAL IN THE 80'S, WE WOULDN'T BE HERE!!!! I MAY PUSH YOU OUT OF THE WAY TO SUCK A DICK, BUT EVEN I AM NOT THIS GAY!!! I WOULD RATHER GO TO A YANKEES GAME THEN GO TO A BROADWAY MUSICAL!!! (AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FUCK A YANKEE IS!) (I DO KNOW THAT A BROADWAY THEATER DOESN'T HAVE A URINAL TROUGH, WHICH IS THE ONLY REASON TO GO TO A SPORTING EVENT!!! (WHAT KIND OF A CLUELESS QUEEN DOESN'T INSTALL A URINAL TROUGH IN A BROADWAY THEATER! UM, DUH?)

I still can’t get over the fact that Taylor Swift bullied her way into getting her own song in there along with ALW’s!

That’s like having Beyonce shove one of “her” songs into “West Side Story”. Or Lady Gaga contribute to “The Sound of Music”.

Cracking up at the notion.

Taylor's plans ultimately backfired though. This film's a horror show, but like... there's a part of me that wonders whether Taylor funded some part of it, because it almost feels like it exists to house a new Taylor Swift song... because like... it gets a reprise... it's woven into the score and sounds nothing like it... Judi Dench even sings a part of it. Why did this happen?

The feeling you get though, is like... I imagine Taylor positively sweating the moment she found out she could write a song for the film. This was a fucking Oscar play. She wanted what Adele and Gaga got. Beyonce wants it too with her trifle of a song in The Lion King. Hilariously though, Swift's song didn't even make the Oscar shortlist! That HAS to be intention on behalf of the nominating body, because even Beyonce's song got in. I bet they were offended by every musical sensibility in the film, and balked at Swift's obvious desperation. Good for them!

They're COWARDS if they don't nominate Ian McKellan though!!!

R156 It is boring horrible excuse for a song. She co-wrote it with ALW? He has lost his musical touch long time ago but this song has to be one of his worst ones.

[quote] That’s like having Beyonce shove one of “her” songs into “West Side Story”.

Or Dreamgirls.

"The Show's Lyrics by T. S. Eliot... and Taylor Swift."

That's a credit to die for.

I would really liked James Corden banned from all musicals. He is not an actor. ]He is a TV host.

R160, he doesn't even do that well. He loves the sound of his own voice. That works when you are someone funny like Dave Chappelle. Not when you are an unfunny attention-seeking "nice guy".

Is there a kitty litter big enough for this movie?

[quote]... She co-wrote it with ALW? He has lost his musical touch...

No, Puccini ran out of melodies to steal.

[quote] I still can’t get over the fact that Taylor Swift bullied her way into getting her own song in there along with ALW’s!

That's a fact? You sound Republican.

I think she really did the lyrics and ALW wrote most of the music, and he graciously let her pretend she had co-written the music with him so she could save face.

R154 tries a little too hard.

Because I know of no queen who went more than once, and that includes those of us who grew up the Ken Page.

NO excuses for blaming gay people for this unholy mess. It starts with the creepy faux-elite Eliot pretending to slum (who denied his gayness) and ends with Miss Webber, who cannot be called gay because she has spurned the claim and married the hideous Sally B., which no non-closeted queer would have done.

Blame the straights, the unwashed theatergoers of the world, and the only true gay person with responsibility, David Geffen.

Who is the hunky tom cat in R46 next to Francesca Hayward?

R166 I have no idea what you're saying, but it sounds so gay, that you just made me feel like the most hetero dude on the planet!!!!!!

Gurl, you GAY!!!!!

[quote]Blame the straights, the unwashed theatergoers of the world, and the only true gay person with responsibility, David Geffen.

Yes! David Geffen and only David Geffen.

[quote]Who is the hunky tom cat in R46 next to Francesca Hayward?

That's Tony nominee and ballet dancer Robbie Fairchild, who's so committed in the film that I found him positively adorable. I was watching in the background during Dench's closing soliloquy, and he was perfect. It was like children's theatre.

It's only going to make $8 million this weekend, which is half of earlier projections. Whoever greenlighted this kitty litter turd is getting fired. Spielberg has to be sweating over his West Side Story remake at this point.

Meanwhile, Star Wars on track to gross $200 million domestic.

Cam version is online!

Taylor Swift is box-office poison.

It should have opened on Christmas day. The week before Christmas is notorious slow week for theaters. Plus you can counter a behemoth like Star Wars but no one will come this week. Shopping, parties and even Hanukkah keep people busy.

I wonder if this and The Apple would make a craptastic double feature?

Sounds like all this needed was Tommy Wiseau.

My favorite Kitty

[quote] Spielberg has to be sweating over his West Side Story remake at this point.

No sweat, I got this covered!

The cats were all neutered. All those tights and not a glimpse of genitals.

Cats is releasing an "improved" version to cinemas over the weekend, that allegedly fixes some of the CGI issues (again):

The CGI's not actually the problem with the film. If anything it's the only risk that somewhat worked... for me at least. The problem is that it both bores and disgusts you, and no amount of enhanced CGI is going to fix that.

No, it's the CGI! That's why everyone hates it!

Do you think Cats will bankrupt Universal?

FUTURE. CULT. CLASSIC. Just sayin'.

Too boring to become a cult classic... but perhaps someone could make a better cut of the film. No one wants to sit through some of these musical numbers again... no reason to subject yourself to that.

The strange reviews are still coming. Salon.com-

[quote] I was often confused and frankly frightened watching “Cats,” but I was never bored. And it’s not often one leaves a movie questioning the very fabric of reality, but I fully staggered out of “Cats” like I’d just spent two hours chasing one big, expensive laser pointer. And me, I was just a baffled little feline, following its light wherever it led.

Universal Notifies Theaters 'Cats' Is Being Updated With "Improved Visual Effects" which means the sloppy CGI will not be on the DVD.

Cats has made less than half of what was predicted on its opening day - it pulled in only 7.6 million$ as opposed to its 15 million$ prediction.

R178 OT, but Pat would have been perfect as Grizabella in the original London cast after Judi had to leave due to accident. I’ve never liked Paige’s voice and her acting is very limited. I love Pat’s trained operatic voice and she is excellent actress. She would have been superb Grizabella.

The magic day is the day after Christmas. Kids are out of school, shopping and parties are done and if it doesn't make anything that day, it's history. As stated before, the week before Xmas is a proven slow movie week. "The Greatest Showman" did over $5 million the day after Xmas and almost twice their opening day. And yes "Star Wars" doesn't count.

Apples and oranges, I'm afraid. Greatest Showman had terrific audience scores, suggesting it would have legs. Which it did. Cats has disastrous audience scores. It doesn't bode well.

Dead on Arrival

If the clips of dialogue and action in the trailer are the most enticing the movie has to offer, it must be unbearably tedious and uninspired.

Again, this is a very bad remake. The stage version was professionally for filmed for commercial film release in 1998 with the original stage costuming, set design, choreography and staging, It wasn't a big hit but it wasn't received with the nearly universal derision of this version.

That version was never released in theatres. At least not in the US. It was broadcast on PBS.

[quote]That version was never released in theatres. At least not in the US. It was broadcast on PBS.

Yes, it was released to theaters in the US, r196, at least according to IMDB. October 27, 1998. Not a wide release, and not a hit, but it was released theatrically in the US before being shown on PBS.

^ that was many years ago. I doubt that anyone would know.

^ that was many years ago. I doubt that anyone would know.

The show is primarily a dance show with songs, yet no one has said anything about the dancing. Is that a good thing?

The dancing is fabulous.

Not to beat a dead horse (or cat) but the '98 version was direct-to-video and then broadcast on TV. That IMDB date doesn’t mean it was released in theaters. It really wasn’t.

As was sometimes pointed out at the time, the show ran for years in London and particularly New York because of Japanese tourists, You didn't have to understand English to get the point. Dancing cats with big production values.

[quote]The show is primarily a dance show with songs, yet no one has said anything about the dancing. Is that a good thing?

Sure, when Tom Hooper keeps the camera still or far enough from the dancers so you can actually see what they're doing. There's so much frenetic and sloppy editing during the dance sequences that it's hard to even absorb whatever story they're trying to tell with their bodies. This style may have worked for something like Les Mis, but it's completely misplaced here.

It's a shame too, because there are some world class dancers in the cast, but their movement's all poorly captured by Hooper.

Has there ever been a director of movie musicals who was less musical than Hooper? You get the feeling that doesn’t even like music, let alone musical theatre.

I don't know why anyone is surprised by this. The musical itself was a chore to sit through.

Did Andrew Lloyd Weber push this on us? I'm just wondering why this was greenlit - was it an attempt to put an English classic on to film?

You have to have good material to make a film - the content of this musical was always thin and bizarre. Who crafts a musical based on a series of poems about cats?

When did Betty Buckley become so obese? Her upper body looks like a giant potato.

It's strange how her speaking voice is still so youthful at her age. If I were talking to her on the phone and didn't know her age, I'd swear she was in her 20s or 30s.

[quote]Has there ever been a director of movie musicals who was less musical than Hooper? You get the feeling that doesn’t even like music, let alone musical theatre.

Yeah, this is definitely a situation where the wrong director's telling the story. I sort of felt this way with Fincher and Benjamin Button... sentimental whimsy isn't his strong suit. Hooper's strange in that there's actually a lot of life and humor in The King's Speech. I even like its off-kilter visual language, but whatever was charming about that film is completely missing from all his subsequent efforts. I think the Oscar win fucked him up, because he was mainly a TV/indie director before Speech, and it seems like that film catapulted him into a cinematic strata his talents simply weren't ready for. How one starts the decade winning Best Picture and Director, and ends it with Cats I'll never know.

[quote]When did Betty Buckley become so obese? Her upper body looks like a giant potato.

She looks fine for an old broad.

R204 He should have watched old Hollywood musicals. Those directors knew how to film dance scenes.

BoxOfficeMoJo discusses box office results for Cats for this weekend-

[quote] Landing in fourth position is Universal's Cats with a disappointing $6.5 million from 3,380 locations, ranking in the top twenty among worst openings all-time for a film playing in over 3,000 locations. Negative reviews for the film heading into the weekend were met with a disappointing "C+" CinemaScore from opening day audiences and the film continued to lose momentum from there. Internationally it opened in the UK this weekend with an estimated $4.4 million for a global launch just shy of $11 million. Cats expands next week in 37 markets including France, Australia, Germany, Korea and Mexico, and continues its international rollout through February.

Estimated production cost (not including marketing) for Cats is $95 million.

That $95 million figure is bullshit. They studio is trying to downplay just how insanely expensive the movie is. Word in HW is that it's more than double that number.

They should throw it on On Demand Christmas day.

They carry DVDs of it at Med Men Cannabis Dispensaries, free with purchase!

This was better than The Greatest Showman with its boring story, kidz bop pop song soundtrack written by Fall Out Boy, and talentless cast. At least this movie had some actual artistic effort put into it. The Greatest Showman was soulless, visionless plastic.

[quote]That $95 million figure is bullshit. They studio is trying to downplay just how insanely expensive the movie is.

I suspect you're right. I assumed the budget would have been $100m+ easy, but regardless, we know they definitely paid a shit ton on advertising. Does the $6.5m opening even cover any of the cast's salaries?

At the [bold]15:00 mark [/bold]in this interview Betty Buckley talks about how she finally arrived at her interpretation of the song MEMORY. She was almost fired during previews before she hit on it.

It's interesting to hear a real artist talk about technique.

Is CATS the biggest flop of the decade? I can't think of any of other movie that cost as much and was as big a financial and critical bomb.

The Greatest Showman ended up being a massive box office hit for a reason-audiences loved it. Cats will be a fiasco everywhere it opens. I wonder if Germany is the only foreign market where it has been totally dubbed, even the songs.

R106. That song has a smelly cat Phoebe buffay thing going on doesn't it?

The only thing more annoying than "Cats" are all the reviewers trying to make the best cat-related puns for their reviews. ENOUGH ALREADY.

R221 needs to paws, and think about what she just wrote.

I don't understand why they didn't cast Barbra Streisand in the role of Grizabella. She would have been terrific singing "Memory" and she would have won her third Oscar. As Supporting Actress of course and she wouldn't have liked that. The movie would have drawn in many fans and made alot more money. I guess the Jennifer Hudson fans wouldn't go see it then but the Barbra fans outweigh her alot. Let's recast the movie right now. Who do you want to see in it?

I don't understand why they didn't cast Barbra Streisand in the role of Grizabella. She would have been terrific singing "Memory" and she would have won her third Oscar. As Supporting Actress of course and she wouldn't have liked that. The movie would have drawn in many fans and made alot more money. I guess the Jennifer Hudson fans wouldn't go see it then but the Barbra fans outweigh her alot. Let's recast the movie right now. Who do you want to see in it?

ROFL

WHY DO THEY TORTURE US WITH PIX OF THAT GOD AWFUL MISS SWIFT ON ALL THE ADS?????

SHE IS AN ABSURD LESBIONIC.

IT'S A FLOP

just got back (had to see it for myself)

The added in plot is minimal, but it’s terrible. Macavity is kidnapping the other cats so he can go to the heavyside layer himself. He just poofs them away to a barge. It’s never explained how they get off again.

And Grizabella ascends in a fucking chandelier. In my head I heard the overture to Phantom.

The human faces, hands and feet are bad enough, but the prehensile tails are really creepy.

Soft porn for furries.

It could have worked in its weird way if a director who knew his way around CGI and big set pieces had directed. A Robert Zemekis could have made it weird and silly and atmospheric where as the trailers were were terrifying and silly and cheap.

Tom Hooper doesn’t have it.

ALW would do better to reboot the Phantom Of The Opera with Ramin Karimloo and some hot teen or fast track Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close.

Sorry, who was the idiot above claiming that "Cats" wasn't rushed out to theaters?

The Muppet folks should have done it. I’m deadly serious.

Great opening!

Dame Judi's hand

After early trailers were released, the Millennials group-thought to torpedo it. It has been decided.

The same way they torpedoed Hillary's chances of winning in 2016 (and will lose us the election again in 2020).

R228, I did really want to fuck Mungojerrie, he was the sexiest by far.

Waited around to see the Idris bit which was shockingly bad (he looked like a bodybuilder in a hair suit) and then tried to leave as soon as I could. Memory came on and I didn’t want to offend the other three people in the cinema so I watched that bit and left.

For the first three or four minutes of the film I thought maybe it was a near miss, destined for greatness in 15 years. That very quickly changed to, well, at least they tried. By about 20 minutes in the whole thing looked like cat excrement as all I could think was of what a bloody minded lunatic Tom Hooper must be, devoting so much time and energy to this dreck. The primary issue is how awful the source material is - the songs are so terrible they at one point a guy’s generic Apple ringtone went off and I wanted to say, “Hey turn the volume down on the movie so we can listen to the ringtone!”

And after a while you realise all these subjective decisions have been made about what is literally a cultural void, a black hole. So no matter the pacing, the camera angles, the design, etc., there’s no there there. Nothing matters because as some very bright spark noted, “Hooper is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” And, of course, he thinks he’s making a masterpiece. By her second scene, even Judi Dench looks lost at sea, with no idea what she’s doing or why she exists. It’s terrible.

The lack of perspective is a constant reminder of how out of reach this concept was to the creators. And how much effort they put into it! And how MAD that is! There was never going to be any success with this. I felt sorry for all the hard-working CGI pixel jockeys who had to look at these frames for probably 18 months at least and apply subjective decision-making to something that always looked like excrement to begin with. They must be blind by now or have left the business.

Avoid at all costs. It was curiosity that killed the cat! And it’ll kill you too!

R155, forget the song. Taylor Swift bullied her way into having tits!

We just went to see it this afternoon and it is not any worse than the stage musical. I really do think a lot of the hostile stupefaction is coming from reviewers who were unfamiliar with the source material. In fact, in many ways it is a faithful adaptation of the musical.

r237 I think the issue the reviewers have with it is more the direction, the inconsistently-sized sets, the creepy CGI, and James Corden. The fact that the CGI and sound was frantically being finished the day before cinema release is telling. All of that served to distract from the actual musical being performed, thus reducing its effectiveness.

I think the social media hive-mind groupthinking did have something to do with the movie flopping. It's uncanny valley-looking but it's not that bad.

Explain "uncanny valley-looking", please.

R240

How big are the cats supposed to be?

The trailer makes the film look like 1/3 GOTHAM + 1/3 MOULIN ROUGE +1/3 THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU

[quote] How big are the cats supposed to be?

Cat-sized, but scale does change a lot in this film.

r240 it's a term used to refer to lifelike robots or CGI humans. They look human, but there's something... uncanny about them that makes them appear disturbingly surreal. It's not a good feeling.

Here's the uncanny valley graph. Rendering a human being as a cartoon or a doll can be delightful, but the closer you get to a human, the more disturbing it can become. Notice that corpses and zombies are at the nadir of the graph below. They are human-like, but not quite. That's also the problem with some CGI images and robots as they get closer to looking like real human beings.

Uncanny valley robot head.

The relevance of uncanny valley to "Cats" is that a least 2 of the reviewers noted that they were "frightened" by some of the images on the screen. And they weren't talking exclusively about James Corden, either.

[quote]it is not any worse than the stage musical.

That's hardly a glowing recommendation.

I did not mean it to be a recommendation, r239. I meant that much of the criticism of the film is really about the stage musical which was always empty and pretentious. I do not really buy the hysteria around the CGI effects. So many other current films look even worse.

Tom Hooper is having quite the year. He managed to ruin CATS and HIS DARK MATERIALS in just a matter of months.

For the record: both the Corden and the Wilson characters make jokes about eating and being fat.

I haven’t seen it yet, but Corden and Wilson seem woefully miscast. Shouldn’t Bustopher Jones be very grand, like a feline Robert Morley? Corden is a lot of things, but grand he ain’t. And Jennyanydots (sp?) should be a luvvie, right? Like your dear old aunt.

Corden’s Bustopher wallows in garbage, and Wilson’s Jennyanydots eats the cockroaches (who have human faces) in her cockroach tattoo.

To summarize:

Taylor Swift is terrible and required them to give her enormous cat boobs costing tens of millions of dollars each, and her new song (that she tried to shoehorn in for Oscar bait for herself) flopped

James Corden is awful and ruins the entire film

The sets are weirdly scaled and uneven

The FX are spotty and were rushed out at the last minute

"Memory" gets belted out by Jennifer Hudson like her cooch is being electrified

Everyone hates it

-fin-

I'm an executive producer on "Cats." Our studio has held the film rights for a long time. The Broadway show's worldwide earnings over its 18-year run was $3.5 billion. An attempt to rake in more cash with a movie version was inevitable.

And we can learn from our mistakes. Next year when we release "West Side Story,' I guarantee that Tony and Maria's CGI fur will be STATE OF THE ART.

This is second filmed version of Cats.

The 1998 version filmed version of the stage show with Dame Judi Dench had a small theatrical release and is mainly remembered for its PBS showing. It is mostly considered boring, as opposed to this version which is justly considered ghastly, just ghastly.

^ I'm sorry, I was wrong above. The 1998 film version of Cats starred the original London stage Grizabella Elaine Paige, not Judi Dench, who had been originally cast but had to drop out due to an injury.

James Corden stars in the movie musical "Cats," so it seems only appropriate for him to join the chorus ... that the movie sucks!!!

James was on a BBC radio show and told the hosts he hasn't seen the musical yet, but he heard "it's terrible."

It's hard for him to argue otherwise. "Cats" has been a spectacular flop. It cost $100 million to make, and pulled in just $6.5 million in its opening weekend.

R258, see r202.

It looks so bad. I love when these crappy movies with all these stars bomb.

Does Dame Judy Dench need the bucks that badly ?

Probably not, but her Daughter Finty Williams and Grandson Sam are pretty much financially dependent on her. She will need to leave a hefty trust fund when she dies.

There goes Taylor Swift's attempt at a film career!

R260 he neglects to mention that HE's terrible in it and should forever retire from showbusiness and move back to the UK.

Taylor Swift is box office poison!

[quote]I really do think a lot of the hostile stupefaction is coming from reviewers who were unfamiliar with the source material.

The powers that be should've known most Americans would not want to see this, simply because they are not familiar with the source material. Not to mention it's visually off. But instead they chose to jerk each other off by making the movie anyway!

So is it safe to safe to say Universal which produced "CATS" isn't giving Tom Hooper "Wicked", their next big musical?

omg I lasted 15 min....they look like pervy fuks in animal outfits like the pervs who dress that way for sex kicks.....TAYLOR SWIFT U DUMB FUK

R266 We don't want him back!

What else has the director done to have created such a pile of feces????

Jennifer Hudson was horrible. I actually expected her to snort and blow her nose during her embarrassingly sentimental and tearful rendition of ‘Memory’.

wtf happened to her????? she looked/sounded like a sow....

If it's so bad, I wonder if it will become a cult classic.

[quote]So is it safe to safe to say Universal which produced "CATS" isn't giving Tom Hooper "Wicked", their next big musical?

Stephen Daldry was announced as the director of Wicked awhile ago. He's a far, far superior director to Hooper and his films always get multiple Oscar noms and wins.

Universal actually bumped Wicked back 2 years to fast-track Cats for some strange reason. Wicked has wide appeal, especially to young audiences. It also has a much more commercial score and storyline.

Hooper will probably be forced to go “back to basics” and direct lower budget fare like that soccer film he directed starring Michael Sheen.

[quote]Stephen Daldry was announced as the director of Wicked awhile ago. He's a far, far superior director to Hooper and his films always get multiple Oscar noms and wins.

Actually both get multiple Oscar noms and wins. This is a major kick in the ass for Hooper but his last three films, "The King's Speech", "Les Miserable" & "The Danish Girl" had numerous nominations and wins including Best Picture for "The King's Speech". Very equal career wise.

I managed to avoid just about everything about Cats over the years, so going into the movie I new little. The extreme reactions by actors (looking at you Evan Rachel Wood) and critics are not warranted.

Yeah it's a bad film, really poorly directed and lots of bad choices all around. The effect of making people look like cats, I never got used to it. It was just too weird, too real I guess. It's one of those movies that would have benefited from using saturated color and making the visuals look like beautiful a painting the way technicolor movies used to look. That would have also helped soften the realism of the cat CGI on the people. The use of realism in musicals runs counter to the whole vibe of a musical. I wish people would stop doing it. Make us feel like we are being transported to another world where singing and dancing is normal and beautiful and fun. Otherwise part of my energy is going to be used in making this unreal stuff happening on screen fit into my usual reality and that is going to kill a lot of the fun factor.

The dancing was badly shot, the choreography was shit. I think Hollywood needs to find directors that understand how to film action who are also strong narratively. Then hire a great editor. I really really great editor.

Cats is bad but the histrionics from everyone are stupid given that Cats is not a universally loved story. It's not like they just took a shit on the Wizard of OZ or something. Now, if the same thing happens with Wicked, then I could understand the over the top caterwauling.

r279 it's the most commonly seen Broadway play for everyone in the US including midwestern Fraus who drag their families to it in New York when they're on vacay.

The simple fact is, James Corden and Taylor Swift should not be in movies.

[quote]The simple fact is, James Corden and Taylor Swift should not be in movies.

Cordon was wonderful in "Into The Woods"

There’s been an unintentionally hilarious hour long show about Cats on BBC Radio 2 tonight.

Can’t wait till it’s on Itunes, I want to see how actual cats are going to react to this horrorshow.

Should have been animated.

I agree! Then I could have had even BIGGER breasts!

I finally went and saw this a few days ago. My jaw is still on the floor. What in the holy hell was this?! So terrible in so many ways.

I'm not sure why everyone's dumping on Taylor Swift. By the time she appears in the movie so many other craptastic moments have passed that she really didn't make much of an impression. Not saying she's good but she's certainly not the worst thing about it. For me the biggest cringe was Judi Dench "presenting" at the end of Ian McKellan's number. I could have lived my life very happily without that image.

And why the hell was Jennifer Hudson's character so snot-laden? I get it, she was old and distressed but it was extremely distracting.

CATS! is a good movie if you are tired and in the mood to take a nap.

SHUT OUT of the Oscars!!

Shocker!

R286

I didn't hate Swift, but I was underwhelmed by her performance. Considering how terrible the movie is, it's notable that she wasn't even close to the best performer in it. That honor, in my opinion, goes to Steven McRae.

It's odd, though, that no one's shitting on Jennifer Hudson's execrable performance, both in acting and singing. That woman must be made out of teflon.

On the positive side, this film doesn't have any teen pregnancy, genocide, homophobia, or alien invasions.

I only saw it a few days ago and without any irony or shade - I genuinely loved it. And why I can understand why it might not be everybody’s cup of tea, I’m a little puzzled by the venom directed towards it.

r291 were you drunk, or high?