And there’s no way around it. The CGI on the cats is the stuff of nightmares. I’m not really concerned with whether or not the cats look realistic, but they do need to look pleasing to the eye. Pleasing to the eye is about the last phrase I would use to describe anything related to this visual abomination, and that’s why I was looking forward to watching it. Surely the only way is up from there, right?
Well, it turns out that was very not true. Cats is an example of a failure to the proportions of which I have never seen before. The film is bad, and bad in the most ponderous, uninteresting way you could possibly imagine, but it’s also a kind of bad that I have never come across before. This film is a kind of bad indicative of a complete misunderstanding of film as an artistic medium. As such, I don’t think this film should ever have been made. It doesn’t work in this medium. The narrative offers nothing of substance and is the absolute definition of one dimensional, the actors ooze anti-charisma as they try and fail to emote through the CGI, and the film might go down as the biggest waste of an all star cast I’ve seen all year.
But, with all the obvious criticisms out of the way, I want to get the core of why I think this movie has fundamentally misunderstood the medium of film. In a theatre, there is a certain level of ‘closeness’ between the audience and the performers: immersive by design. Huge dance numbers, immersive set design, the ‘directness’ with which the actors perform to the audience, these elements add to this ‘closeness’ between performer and audience. Film, on the other hand, creates distance between audience and performer, and that’s part of what a film director in the film industry needs to bear in mind in contrast to a director in the theatre industry. When you have a script so lacking in emotional dynamics, the big flashy dance numbers are pretty much all you’ve got to keep the story interesting, something that might work on stage thanks to the immersive nature of the theatre experience, but the distance between characters and audience, which is essential to film as a medium in comparison to a theatre production, means that the impact of these sequences is muted in comparison, although I’ve not seen it performed on stage so I can’t say for sure. Again, it wouldn’t be a problem if the rest of the film did not feel so soulless.
And that’s a huge problem. It feels like a film about nothing. A film that’s only propped up by a glamorous all star cast. And, most disappointingly of all, it’s a film that could have worked. In fact, I’m convinced if you look the same set of performers and used the same CGI, but rewrote the script into a horror movie exposing the true darkness of the world these cats inhabit, it could have actually worked. And that’s not just something I’ve pulled from out of the blue either. I think the filmmakers at least vaguely understood this. Why else would the film heavy handedly juxtapose it’s pounding editing in the dance numbers with long takes shot in close ups and medium close ups (that only seem to serve the purpose of drawing attention to the CGI) that seem completely misplaced, and would be exactly the thing you’d find in a horror movie. Shots like these are used to create a sense of unease or build emotional connections. And, when your characters have no emotions, the cinematography and editing feels more eerily out of place the more you think about it.
And that’s all I have to say about Cats. In fact, I think that’s all the brain cells I’m willing to give this movie. It might not be the worst thing I’ve seen this year, Wild Rose and Black Christmas are still fighting it out for that spot in my head, but this is without question a close second. Unquestionably a stain on the reputation of everyone involved. You might not think highly of yourself, but at least you can live your life and die knowing that you have more dignity than everyone who chose to associate themselves with this disaster.
3 / 10
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