Holy moly was this a depressing movie. I felt like all the cats were verging on bipolar, borderline personality, and or depression. What happened to the fun antics with cats within the main ensemble? Most of the cats were serious and seemed as though they were going to pounce on the next innocent thing, waiting to tear their limbs, paws and fur from ear to ear.
What also felt stark was the lack of sound from the cats themselves. It was eerily silent when focusing on what the main characters were doing. Sure on set usually it is dead silent when the main characters are talking, but really? It was as though everyone had just come back from a funeral.
And speaking of weird humor which didn’t work at all was the chubby cat played by the ham actor Rebel Wilson. In some movies she has done well, using her dry sense of delivery to a tee, but in this movie it felt like she was playing for laughs. The humour was too contrived and overly slapstick to truly laugh at. And woah, the mouse CGI was terrible. You could see they were cut and pasted onto the background and the scale of the mice to humans was just off the charts literally.
But really the cockroaches were the epitome of fakery. With the same movement marching you could see that they based on coach roach and repeated the effect with no personality. And who said Wilson could sing? Yes ok I get it, they hired her for the profile she brings, you know humor…I think. But heck can you imagine the number of actors and performers who would have killed for that role and played it beautifully. Cue the LA waitresses singing a high note, lyrical dancing while serving shrimp.
When an actor decides to play for laughs, the laughs tend to be on them because there is a sense of manipulation going on. Its as though the audience can’t figure what is going on unless someone spells it out for us. No Ms Wilson your depiction was too contrived to be believable.
Speaking of spelling out the obvious, Miss Jennifer Hudson playing the forlorn, forgotten and despised cat, Grizabella…… Memory the quintessential arguably most famous song from the stage musical show, originally sang by Elaine Page, who made the song famous. Incidentally Dame Judy Dench was pegged for the original role, but snapped her achilles heel.
What a complete missed opportunity to hit the role like it should have. So cue a bedraggled cat roaming past the same door three times in the movie, (boy she sure wants to be noticed). When ‘Victoria’ does notice heir, Hudson sings. A beautiful falsetto experience, but…and I say that with trepidation, the facials oh the facials. The tears and the mucus dribbling (why the director thought that was a good look I don’t know). That’s all I could think of when Hudson sang ‘Memory’. But what was worse was Hudson feeling sorry for herself during her entire shot.
Now as an a mature actor myself I have found it necessary to completely indulge my emotions and fully expecting the audience to be in tears, snivelling on the ground, because my talent really gave it to them. But alas and a lack, that didn’t happen as should be expected. Once again these theatrics are exactly that, theatrics. They manipulate the audience and the audience knows it on a subconscious level. They’ll look at Hudson thinking to themselves…’Gee she’s a good singer’…but at the same time couldn’t quite access her.
Here’s the thing, if you fully indulge in your emotions and don’t PLAY AGAINST these emotions as is normal, then you are spelling out the role the audience should take…therefore underestimating their ability to find within themselves the catharsis. Not ultimately her fault, but that of the director Tom Hooper who incidentally did a fabulous job of Les Miserable. He should be pulling her up on these amateurish theatrics. But he let an actor who actually has acting chops fall by the way side.
Imagine her singing against the pain of death and rejection, but trying her best to feel the emotions but pull through those emotions and find power within…THAT is the cathartic experience an audience is hankering for.
And the CGI didn’t go her any favors especially with the face and coloring they chose. But alas most of the characters didn’t quite make the cut did they? The CGI of most of the characters didn’t quite fulfil the look that they should’ve been going for.
Now with Idris Elba that hunk of a man playing a stereotypical version of the evil cat out to get the other cats before they get to cat heaven. His character was solem and depressing. There was no true character there, but a sad depiction of a cat lurking in the background.
Again Rebel Wilson stole the scene in a negative way when she was dropped into the boat, completely over acts some parts and under acts others. It seems as though the director thought it wise to let the actors shape the characters completely with free abandon. I would have loved Wilson to truly get inside her character and fully embrace the actual characteristics of her cat.
If actors don’t fully believe in their characters or ability to communicate their character, then we as audience members don’t believe them either.
The cats in general were pretty morose and sad. They lacked the curiosity, fun, competition side of actual cats which you would normally expect. Most cats aren’t sad and depressed unless they are being oppressed and these cats felt like World War three was beginning.
The Virtues of Cats Movie
The Virtues
The pluses for me with ‘Cats’ the movie are probably things like the setting in the sets. So the alleyways we’re pretty interesting with the lamppost with Grisebella the cat leaning up against it was good. Some of the dancing or choreography was very good in places and the dancers themselves were excellent. You could see that the actress who played Victoria ( Francesca Haywood) had real skills as being a ballet dancer.
Taylor Swift did better than I thought and regard to her overall demeanour however she did like a touch of sexuality in what you would expect for her role. Once again she wrote some good original songs for cat and which Victoria saying which was great.
I really enjoyed the idea of live singing on set similar to what Tom Hooper did with Les Miserables. You could hear the actual tone and ability to sing in tune from the cast members. Jennifer Hudson belted her song beautifully. Victoria had a very sweet sounding voice which suited her character but isn’t probably Broadway worthy.
Some CGI were affective in a positive way particularly the boat and the outside scenes. The scene with Griselda flying up in the hot air balloon over the city was also spectacular.
But overall the movie cats was lacklustre, depressing, and generally just didn’t hit the mark. Most characters and the actors which played them didn’t reach their full potential and showcasing the overall talent.
In fact the movie itself had little or no plot whatsoever this did not take the audience go on a journey. The audience became the amused uninspired watchers of a huge waste of time. I recommend people see this movie for the absolute disaster it turned out to be. This movie is unforgettable and so I recommend it for those reasons only.
