Is CATS a good movie? Hmm... no. But if the question instead asked if CATS is a good piece of entertainment, my answer would be "yes." Cats isn't a movie that works as a standard three act play. There is no arguing around this. Standard movie structure does not work here. Cats is more of a spectacle, in the sense of being a performance that is a mixed cocktail of expression and visuals that are quite impressive and surprisingly organic in flow, but not following a proper plot exactly. Cats does have a loose story attached to it, but it isn't really a story proper. It's sort of like what someone might come up with if they took a nursery rhyme about cats and visually interpreted it into a movie. So having a plot that works is not really the point of the show. Contextually it works together well enough, but its story structure is whimsical, or perhaps figurative(?). If you go to see this movie with the expectation that all must fit into a the three act template, this will not work for you, which seems to be why Cats is being hailed as an unholy terror by thousands of internet experts idiotically falling over each other to come up with new way to proclaim this movie's failure.... But I actually think Cats is quite good, for the type of theater creation that it clearly is, so you should go into this with that type of presentation in mine, which is not many movie goers kind of thing. Even Disney musical fans might find Cats to be too light on plot, even though the visual creativity and choreography is often stellar.
Most of the scenes are whimsical and light, which makes the big dramatic scene feel a little top heavy. Most of of the show is cute and pretty, but "light" entertainment. Still, it does this specific job well. I would think kids under the age of four would really love this.
One thing I am actually annoyed with as far as the haters go, is how everyone keeps blathering about how terrible the CGI is, and this really irks me, because there is SO much bad CGI out there, and this is so far from being bad CGI that it just seems like people are dumb when they try to point this out. I'm not saying it doesn't look mesmerizingly strange to see people as cats, but if it wasn't for all the boo-hoo I had read about what a CGI abomination this supposedly is, I honestly would have thought all the actors was dressed in exceptionally good costumes. That is the truth. The roles in Cats are far from complex, but everyone plays them well. In fact, even though the bulk of her character is only displayed through facial expression and movement, I adored every minute of Jessica Hayward's performance. She was exactly what the role should be, and basically so was everyone else. I thought Taylor Swift seemed more than just a little bit superfluous, but she didn't undermine the movie in any way.
To end off here, I can't help but wonder if somebody important did not want Cats to happen, as a movie specifically. Either that, or maybe somebody just really has it out for Tom Hooper, because while I can understand Cats getting bad reviews for not have the consistency established as a "good movie story", it is also so far from being the monstrosity declared by every Tom, Dick and Harry. The cries of debauchery have been so outlandish that it has set off my spider-sense conspiracy warning... Cats just isn't what it is being panned as by critics. "Bad movie"? Ok, fine. It is too fluid and abstract for many. "Worst movie ever made"? Nope, not even close. Not even anything in this or any other parallel universes of bad movies. My suggestion: go see it with your 11 year old daughter, and this will help clarify the particularly rare and peculiar fun that Cats really is.
(BTW, If you want to know what the worst movie ever made is, it was a musical called The Apple, and it came out in 1980. Just be warned.)
Most of the scenes are whimsical and light, which makes the big dramatic scene feel a little top heavy. Most of of the show is cute and pretty, but "light" entertainment. Still, it does this specific job well. I would think kids under the age of four would really love this.
One thing I am actually annoyed with as far as the haters go, is how everyone keeps blathering about how terrible the CGI is, and this really irks me, because there is SO much bad CGI out there, and this is so far from being bad CGI that it just seems like people are dumb when they try to point this out. I'm not saying it doesn't look mesmerizingly strange to see people as cats, but if it wasn't for all the boo-hoo I had read about what a CGI abomination this supposedly is, I honestly would have thought all the actors was dressed in exceptionally good costumes. That is the truth. The roles in Cats are far from complex, but everyone plays them well. In fact, even though the bulk of her character is only displayed through facial expression and movement, I adored every minute of Jessica Hayward's performance. She was exactly what the role should be, and basically so was everyone else. I thought Taylor Swift seemed more than just a little bit superfluous, but she didn't undermine the movie in any way.
To end off here, I can't help but wonder if somebody important did not want Cats to happen, as a movie specifically. Either that, or maybe somebody just really has it out for Tom Hooper, because while I can understand Cats getting bad reviews for not have the consistency established as a "good movie story", it is also so far from being the monstrosity declared by every Tom, Dick and Harry. The cries of debauchery have been so outlandish that it has set off my spider-sense conspiracy warning... Cats just isn't what it is being panned as by critics. "Bad movie"? Ok, fine. It is too fluid and abstract for many. "Worst movie ever made"? Nope, not even close. Not even anything in this or any other parallel universes of bad movies. My suggestion: go see it with your 11 year old daughter, and this will help clarify the particularly rare and peculiar fun that Cats really is.
(BTW, If you want to know what the worst movie ever made is, it was a musical called The Apple, and it came out in 1980. Just be warned.)