Reasons Why the Cats the Musical Movie Failed

Image Credit: Photo Poster by Universal Studios

The global pandemic forced the entertainment sector to go into hiatus. Unfortunately for me, I was not able to see any live theatre performances as a result of this. I usually see about 3-4 a year when I was still living in Sydney and even luckier if I am in NYC watching such plays in Broadway. Out of sheer boredom last night, I decided to watch Cats the Movie on HBO Max just to fill the musical theatre void I was feeling. And sadly, this movie was an epic fail. 

When I watch musicals, I do not do prior research nor listen to their music. I want to be amused in all aspects of the play and experience its entirety with an open mind. I had no idea what Cats was about. After the first few lines of the Jellicle Songs for the Jellicle Cats (intro song), I was so confused and was not entertained since I was trying to figure out what the word Jellicle means. Since I was at the comforts of my home, and no one telling me I could not use my phone while the production is in play, I quickly googled the term to help me understand the flow of the musical. 

Cats the musical, was created by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1981, which was based from a book from his favourite poet T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum Book of Practical Cats written in 1939. It then clicked for me why I could not understand the English that was being used in this production. The songs were very poetic in nature and old English was used so as a millennial, this immediately killed the vibe for me. From what I gathered in this almost 2 hour movie is the Jellicle Cats were having a ball to determine which cat will move on to the Heaviside Layer. Old Deuteronomy, played by Judi Dench, would determine from each cat’s performances that night who will move on to the Heaviside Layer and start afresh. The antagonist in the movie was named Macavity, played by Idris Elba, who was preventing the other cats from winning by kidnapping them. Before and during the ball, a new member of the Jellicle cats named Victoria, played by Francesca Hayward, was being introduced to different kinds of cats found in the streets of London. 

In terms of the plot, I agree with introducing different kinds of cats since the name of the play is Cats. But starting off with a term not everyone is familiar with, Jellicle, makes a non-Cats fan nod off from watching. I did like the scenes wherein they went to the different cats’ places of lurking or inhabiting around London. It did paint a picture of their nuances. But I always come back to the use of old English so I did not understand what they were singing about. I had to turn on my captions just to get a picture of what they were saying. That veered my eyes away from what was happening with the cats on the screen, further confusing me on what was going on with this play. 

In terms of the songs, there were only about 2 songs I liked, Rum Tum Tugger and Bustopher Jones, respectively. The Rum Tum Tugger in particular reminded me of Rain on Me by Lady Gaga. The rest of the songs just made my eyes glaze over the scene. Weirdly enough, the cast were singing in a British accent while the rest were still singing in a neutral accent. I would have expected the whole cast to sing in English accent but I guess they were trying to showcase the diversity of cats by using various accents. Also unfortunately, I felt like Judi Dench, Old Deuteronomy, could not hold a tune. She was having a hard time hitting the high notes, which made the songs painful to listen to. 

Moving on to the costume, the production used a new technology to create each character’s costume. Since the overall appearance made the cats look more human than cats, this was a fail for me. They did not even have paws; they resorted to having human hands and feet with no claws. I was having a hard time imagining the cast as cats. The integration of the CGI to the characters looked unsuccessful because at times I can see the animation just floating on top of the actor. 

As for the sets they used, the London streets gave me a Diagon Alley feel in the beginning. I did not understand where they were because like I said they were using different accents. Eventually when the cast said they were in London, it made sense why I did get the Diagon Alley vibes. The colour palate they used was reminiscent of the Greatest Showman for me. Since most of it was CGI, it felt really fake and flat.

Let us move on to cinematography shall we. I did love the wide-angle choice in portraying most of the scenes to capture the cats dancing and prancing around the streets of London. Close up shots were good but I liked the camera angle choices best in terms of depicting entrapped cats scenes. Lighting was on point, love the dark and colourful scenes.

Even though the movie was portraying cats, it did not show much of their movement. They were mostly dancing in ballet, and when they are in static positions or dynamic positions but not dancing, I saw minimal resemblance to cat behaviour. 

To sum it all up, the whole movie was a mess. To be honest, the short stint of Cats in the series Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix, with Titus joining the Cats cast was better than this almost 2-hour show. It was a great attempt on the production’s part to incorporate new technology in filmmaking. I just feel like this was not the best use of the said tech. And although this was a star-studded cast, it does not necessarily translate into a hit. Furthermore, even incorporating James Corden into the mix, who is my favourite entertainer as of date, did not save this movie. If you are planning to watch this movie at the comforts of your home, I suggest you skip this and watch Hamilton Movie on Disney Plus instead.