As some of you know, my original intention was to complete a live commentary via Facebook. However, due to technical difficulties, I was relegated to taking notes on my phone. I have to say, I quite enjoyed the experience. It allowed me to reflect closer on something with which I actually have a history, instead of playing to an audience. I even had a flash of Penny Hardwick from High Fidelity cross my mind.
Okay.
And, here. we. go.

This movie is such a blatant failure of a marketing attempt by Universal, and all related parties. It’s really a shame, because Andrew Lloyd Weber wrote a beloved, cooky, crazy musical.
Dudes, it’s just a bunch of cats, singing and dancing and getting down with each other. Like, everyone’s in heat and partying super hard, because that’s the night their priest is going to ascend one of them to cat heaven, and everyone’s having a blast.
Except this one asshole, Macavity. See, Macavity figures he can cheat the system by taking out all the other eligible cats, and then Old Doots will have to choose him, right?
But nah, cuz.
See this disgraced old broad, Grizabella, she was all mourning her lost youth, cast out by the other cats, just a fucking wreck.
Well, she shows up and just straight kills it on the pipes, and everyone’s crying, and Old Doots is all, yup. You get a new life.
And that’s it.
It works on stage, when like three-quarters of the show is everyone just banging out these brilliant numbers with dance and vocals, and they’re far away.
Dude. They’re far away, up on stage, and that’s the only thing that makes it work.
Because, when you throw a camera close-up on a mutant cat person and ask them to jiggle their bits, things get really weird, really quickly.

Immediately, the setting is noticeably awkward. The garrishly cartoonish perspectives do not work within the frame of the lens.
I have vertigo for the first time in a movie theatre.
I’m falling down this awful rabbit hole of a world completely devoid of humans, like where are the humans? This looks like a functional portion of city. And later, the movie shows people definitely live there. Am I missing something?
Is CATS set during an air raid?
Then, a person shows up in their car, the only homo sapien we will see for the duration. They throw out a cloth bag into the alley trash.
What’s in the bag?
Victoria.
Victoria is the written-in observer hero who’s going to guide us along this nightmarish journey.
(oh shit. are they going to try to tell a story?)
The Jellicles, a tribe of cats living in what I must assume to be the ruins of a war torn London, approach the bag, and SCRATCH it open.
Victoria tumbles out, and is all like, da fuq.
And some dude just rolls up and is all like, check it out, so w’ere a cult of alleycats that believe our leader Old Deuteronomy has the power to send us to cat heaven, and you’re totally one of us, because you have a secret cat name, and also, remember how you’re family just kind’ve abandoned you. Don’t worry. Island of Misfit Cats, right here.
Naturally, Victoria tags along, otherwise there wouldn’t be a movie to watch, or something.
So, now we’re complicit in the indoctrination of a traumatized youth to a fanatical religious cult.
Which is, I must say, a really bold way to start a film.

The next hour and a half doesn’t really matter at all to the continuation of the story.
(Reminder: what works on stage as a chill ass Caligulan spectacle of cats getting down to celebrate heavenly ascension isn’t a story.)
Instead, what happens is the movie implodes on itself in spectacular fashion.
Let’s begin with the most obvious fuck up, the CGI.

I don’t know if I saw the original SFX release, or the ‘Lucas’ Special Edition’ fix-up. But I don’t think it matters.
In lieu of brilliant costuming, which gives the impression of ‘cat’ at the distance of theatre, AND WHICH UNDER THE CLOSER SCRUTINY OF A CAMERA LENS would stand up to inspection, someone decided to dress everyone in chroma-key spandex and fuse human and cat together into an uncanny experience.
Because of the CGI and frame blending, the proportions kind’ve immediately work which you’d think would be a good thing…
Dancing across this hellacious dreamscape are a bunch of cat-sized cat humans.
Dudes, cats with human hips and shoulders and headshapes, with these ghastly faces sort of floating there, looking at nothing, existing aimlessly, drifting through the broken ruins of a once great human civilization.
It’s fucking creepy.

Then, it gets worse.

Turns out none of these cats have nipples, or genitals. Some of them have lumps on their chest. Do they have cancer? Why are these cats shaking their tumors? This is wrong.
But, they keep bringing up the idea that they have genitals!
(using analog fur costuming and clothing bits, wraps and taping down, and having the audience sitting like thirty feet away, in the dark, instead of, y’know, like squeezed close-up to the point where I should probably purchase a Geiger counter, FUCKING WORKS!)
The dick jokes fall short, and the sexualization is unsettling.

Then, it gets worse.

Some gumby ass cat shows us its collection of human mouse mutant hybrids which they, Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson), have taught to play music. Those poor little bastards are played by child actors.
(If this is a commentary on the exploitative and predatory behaviors practiced on child actors, then good for them! Otherwise, JESUSFUCKINGCHRISTWHATTHEFUCKWEREYOUPEOPLETHINKING!)

Dudes, a human brain can only take so much grotesque abuse before it collapses in on itself.
Then, the human roaches digitized onto the screen.
(IS THIS REAL LIFE!?)

Every piece of real fabric on one of these monsters is an island in an endless ocean of digital gore.
Macavity (Idris Elba) has a coat and hat, thank god.
Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson) has a ratty old fur over their shoulders, and my god, their eyes… so, broken.
(J.Hud does a bang up job as Grizabella, and we’ll totally get to that in a minute.)
Bustopher Jones (James Corden) has a waistcoat and a hat. What a dapper fat gentlecat- what are you do- stop. sto- oh my god, please, dude put the clothes back on, please!
Ol’ Busty goes on to roll around in the trash, deepthroat a prawn, eat more garbage food, and then bang their non-existent genitalia on the edge of a trash can.
Also, none of these creatures have assholes, so what happens to the food they’re eating!
(being able to experience the world of the Jellicles with such detail… i’m amazed they didn’t release it in 3-D, huge market loss there)
Some other names tied to this film:
Dame Judi Dench
Sir Ian McKellan
Jason fucking Derulo
Taylor Swift
Francesca Hayward
Les Twins
Ray Winstone

(I’ll skim over a bunch of the numbers, because I’d rather not remember this movie so much. However, honorable mention to Sir Ian McKellan for his performance as Gus, that shit was meta af and actually delightful.)

Oh shit. oh shit. oh shit
J.Hud is killing it on the Prelude.
Okay, Victoria cat is intrigued.
What the fuck song is this?
Well, reader, let me tell you.
The song is Beautiful Ghosts, written by Taylor Swift, performed by Francesca Hayward, and record single cut by Taylor Swift.
(What a brilliant marketing scheme, no one could possibly notice this completely out of place minutes long song in the middle of this musical, but we definitely want them to notice this song, so we’re gonna reprise it later, and have T.Swift cut a single, and we’re gonna campaign for her to get nominations for Best Original Song, because we need to push our branding. Is T.Swift losing market share? Are they forcing a career move for her? Because in no way is anything she does in this movie seemingly natural.)

Back to the story, because we have like 15 minutes to wrap all of this up.
The Jellicle ball is kicking, Macavity’s jealous ass has kidnapped everyone else who’s been nominated for the Osca- the trip to the Heaviside Layer (aka cat heaven ascension. Did I mention the Jellicles are a fucking cult?), and Grizabella is skulking in the shadows (Victoria keeps noticing her, but dude we can’t move the plot forward yet, we have all these great musical numbers).
Then, Bombalurina (T.Swift) crashes the party to hype Macavity. They drug all the Jellicles with a twisted Harley-esque delight, and it’s looking bad. But, Macavity shows up butt ass nekked and gets straight up tolt by Old Doots (Dame Judi) that they can go fuck themself. Mac will never ascend to the Heaviside.
Mac kidnaps the notorious C(at).O.D. and tries to make them walk the plank into the Thames, but then my favorite number rolls in, and oh, well I never, was there ever a cat so clever as magical Mr. Mistoffelees (Laurie Davidson)?
Turns out, no. Mistoffelees is the shit. And, he saves the day.

Finally, Victoria goes fishing in the gutters outside the Egyptian (which is the shell of an old theatre somewhere in the deep ruins of a post-apocalyptic London, and where the Jellicle ball is being held) and look what the fuck am I trying to do making a cat joke… nah, dudes. nah.
Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson) rails everyone with her song. We all Memory it, it’s heart-wrenching, no one in the history of humankind has heard this song, and completely forgotten about it. Ever. Future included.
(if only they hadn’t over-mixed the instrumentals, because it’s totally toning out some of her voice, and are they doing this on purpose? like, what are they trying to hide? you know what doesn’t matter, i’ve got CHILLS dude!)
Ok, now we gotta reprise “Beautiful Ghosts” for some fucking reason. Oh yeah, now I remember. Victoria is full on a cult member now. They’ve been wined and dined in the trash by Bustopher, they commited B&E with Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer,
(oh shit, I almost forgot! during the B&E and subsequent arson, V, Mungo, and Rumpz all almost get caught by a dog, but you know what, we don’t get to see the dog, part of me is glad, because we all know they would’ve added some god-awful number where the dog is chasing the cats and it’s singing about how exciting it is, and the cats are terrified, somehow its quirky yet thrilling, and the dog will be played by someone like Hugh Jackman, or some cra- oh, Hugh’s not gonna do it? not for anything? well, good on Hugh.)
so yeah, Victoria’s been hypnotized, indoctrinated, and all sorts of crazy shit. Then, Old Deuteronomy puts Grizabella in a fucking hot air balloon and sends the them into the stratosphere.
All the cats walk out into the morning sun, into some probably famous London landmark, but the city’s eerily deserted, and all of a sudden I’m wishing this had all been done by the creator’s of Red Dwarf, because cats like Cat would’ve worked on screen, and they watch Grizabella disappear into sky to quietly suffocate to death.

Did I just watch a bunch of cultists celebrate assisted suicide?