It should be noted that this was written after viewing the original unaltered CGI, and not the re-release of the updated CGI.

Cats is the movie that 2019 deserved.

NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour

Quick Takes

The Good

• The British accents, though I think it’s mostly that the accents made everything feel more legitimate and less bat-shit crazy
• Tom Hooper fixed some issues from Les Mis with sound mixing and camera angles
• Even the stunt casting worked well and all the actors could sing their songs for the most part
• Robbie Fairchild was the true MVP
• The ears are actually great at emoting with
• The cat mannerisms overall were a pretty nice touch
• The writing was actually quite smart and the plot brought out more nuances that weren’t there before
• Everyone basically threw themselves into their roles for the making of this movie, which is pretty admirable
• James Corden pointing out that “aims” does not actually rhyme with “Thames”

The Bad

• CGI cockroaches? Children CGI-ed as mice? It’s about half an hour into the movie and too early to be throwing other shit at us when we haven’t even gotten used to the cats.
• It would’ve been nice to know what Robbie Fairchild’s name was, aka Munkustrap, that one gray striped cat that explains everything to Victoria. As the approximately third most important cat in the movie, it would’ve only taken two seconds for him to introduce himself. 
• Idris Elba’s insane back muscles as a cat
• The Ad-dressing of a Cat breaking the fourth wall, but only maybe?
• Apparently no one on the CGI team knew how big cats actually are. 
• Me finding out that the lyrics were actually “skeptical cats, dispeptical cats” and not “skeptical cats, bespectacled cats”, which would have been BRILLIANT. 
• The cat mannerisms were a bit much at times, like when they’re awkwardly air-necking
• The biggest flaw really is that for a show that’s known to be a spectacle of dance, there really wasn’t much spectacle OR dance.
• Okay but the cockroaches?

The Story

Definitely a highlight.  I was actually impressed at how well Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats was integrated into the plot since it’s a pretty quintessential opening number that’s mostly just meant to start the show.  Having Victoria as the protagonist/newcomer was really quite smart despite the whole “we sing a song about ourselves even though the cat judging us isn’t even here yet” thing. But I loved the moment with Beautiful Ghosts building up to Memory, and how JHud actually added more depth to the last couple verses instead of just sounding wistful. 

Macavity doing actual real magic was also a surprise to me but I guess it worked?  I’m still wondering where he went with Tswizzle and why he lost his magic power but like the rest of the movie, it’s better to just not worry about it.  I wish we saw the whole cast interspersed more throughout the movie. Like most of the cats only showed up for their song and then disappeared until the plot became relevant to them, but since Cats is such an ensemble piece, it would’ve been nice to actually see the whole ensemble more often (I’d been wondering who the cat in the red pants was until Skimbleshanks sang his actual song). Also though, remember how all the other cats gave Victoria shit for her name and talked about the proper naming of cats and then she never changed it?

I never need to see cat-Rebel Wilson zip herself out of her catsuit ever again.

The Songs

Pretty much all of them were there. All the notes were hit (probably).

My main issue was with Beautiful Ghosts, which I thought was actually a great addition in fleshing out a relationship between Victoria and Grizabella, but the composition of it seemed to be in a key that really wasn’t comfortable for anyone between Francesca Hayward, Judi Dench with the reprise, and Taylor Swift in the credits (I think it actually sounded the best in the Taylor Swift version). The other thing was that having it right after the Memory pre-prise just seemed to drag the story a bit with two ballads in a row since most of the other numbers are self-contained and episodic. It might’ve worked better right before Grizabella comes to sing the full version of Memory, since there would’ve at least been a beat to breathe as Victoria encourages Grizabella to take the stage before Memory starts.

But Memory, WOW. I love how it became more than just a park-and-bark showboat song, and how Jennifer Hudson actually let loose with the frustration and bitterness she felt at never being allowed into the Jellicle Ball before. You could definitely see why she’d actually be deserving of being the Jellicle choice instead of just some random cat that comes to sing the 11 o’clock number, and I appreciate that she was able to approach such an iconic song in a different way.

We really did not need The Ad-dressing of Cats though. Just have them gather on that statue to salute Grizabella’s journey while Judi Dench tells Victoria that she’s a Jellicle now and get someone (literally anyone) sing “look a new day has begun”, end scene.

The Sound

A bit of a mixed bag. I think Tom Hopper really did fix his issues from Les Mis, where he really promoted the live singing, but it also sounded like they were singing directly into a vacuum with no reverb, which was kind of at odds with the slightly more studio-polished orchestra. There was definitely a better balance here and I think he achieved more of what he wanted with live singing: specifically, letting the acting shine through even when an actor wasn’t as strong of a singer. But I felt like that balance was a bit of a detriment in the instrumental-only bits. During Jellicle Ball, I really wanted more of that swelling orchestra and wall-to-wall sound, but it just seemed like they were still waiting for a vocal track to be laid over it, which made everything feel distant.

Upon listening to the album after watching the movie, that disparity between vocal and instrumental tracks was much more apparent, as the instrumentals sounded a lot more polished while the vocals still sounded more “live”. Some of the group numbers also seem a bit inconsistent, with different people sounding like they were recorded in different rooms and mixed separately. Like with Les Mis, I wish that they had released a studio recording version of the songs, but I suppose that if I made a list of all the things I wished for in this film, that would probably be near the bottom of a very long list.

The Dance

There just wasn’t enough of it, considering that the main reason why it wasn’t animated was to preserve the dance aspect of the piece. I liked the way that the tails moved to enhance the dance moves, and the tap dance transition into the railway was fantastic. But there were certain times with Victoria on pointe or in the jumps that Les Twins would do where it seemed as if they didn’t know how to reconcile the CGI with actual physics, giving a sensation of the cats floating above the ground, which only added more to the uncanny valley feeling. Andy Blankenbueler is definitely an exciting choreographer to watch so it was a bit disappointing that we didn’t have more to actually watch. 

Overall

It definitely could’ve been worse, and I really think the main barrier to entry was just the CGI.  If you can get past that, then what you’re seeing is basically just the stage show transposed for the screen, which really highlights some weaknesses in the storytelling (or lack thereof), since it’s fundamentally meant to be an on-stage dance showcase. All in all though, I think it’s about on par with the Into the Woods film as a movie adaptation, in the sense that you had all the musical numbers and technically all the aspects of the piece were there, but the adaptations just pale in comparison to the staged productions because of limitations on the screen. Also, both have James Corden.

Special shout-out to Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat: you were my favorite. 

-Christine