Cats: Knee-deep in the Horrors

I honestly hate the energy I'm getting from this strange semi-burlesque introduction. Am I supposed to be turned on or something? Why is the carafe bejeweled? Nobody knows.

While I was in California I decided to see CATS with my friends because I heard how terrible it was and decided that I should view God's crowning shame with my own eyes. It was perhaps my highlight of the visit, and it is indeed a fantastic film to watch with friends. To tell the truth, it's not actually all that bad (outside of the cat designs), and there are some things that the film did that I didn't expect, but regardless it remains an appalling film. Hell, it's actually pretty decent all things considered, but it's a great example of how a part of a project can be executed so terribly that it overshadows and drowns out everything else. It honestly feels like both a dream and a curse simultaneously thinking back on it, and I'm somehow certain that to expunge it from my soul I will have to endure unending agony in body and spirit. So let's talk about CATS, otherwise known to me in the kindest terms as "The Abomination".

Ordinarily I'd advise not paying attention to the actors, but it's so in your face that to do so is effectively impossible. Is this how the re-education in A Clockwork Orange felt like?

I've never seen the Broadway version of CATS, and neither have I read the nursery rhyme book that it is apparently based on, but I know the general plot. Essentially on the earth there's this longstanding tradition called the Jellical Ball among cats that every [unknown period of time] a singularly exceptional feline will be selected to ascend to heaven (and thenceforth be known as a Jellical cat). The entire plot of CATS (in at least the film and stage version) is that this it's another Jellical Ball this year, and the roster is pretty full this time, but the nefarious Macavity connives to steal the nomination for himself. This sounds pretty straightforward, but both the film and show opt for a relatively unique style of unfolding the story. Instead of being delivered character introductions in the first quarter of the film, we are treated to introduction songs throughout the entire film, so we're never really able to get comfortable with the cast. What's worse is how the plot is developed, which essentially amounts to: new character introduces themselves, performs song related to themselves, song ends, and flip a coin to see whether or not Macavity will Thanos-snap them to his realm(?). The songs and the characters each are pretty distinct, but this approach makes everything feel (and actually acts) like filler. Most only have one or two lines outside of their introduction number and do nothing the remainder of the show. What's the point of Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat if he just twirls onto the scene, performs his number, and we don't see him again (it's revealed that he was snapped offscreen)? On top of this, certain character that are on-screen for practically the entire film are left nameless (who the actual fuck is the male cat and twin female cats singing to Victoria?). Some characters are also cut/modified as well, and not for the best. Growltiger was the largest victim of this (the only one I noticed), and he literally only gets his introduction that he sings alone. This entirely changes his presence in the story, he's supposed to be this hulking figure of legend, but he just seems like a small and tacky brute of a secondary villain. Just to be clear, I didn't even expect them to have Growltiger's entire number (it's 8 minutes long and filled with racist Chinese stereotypes), but honestly if you were going to trim his number to that much they might as well cut it, you'd only lose maybe forty-five seconds of screen time for a character with only two short scenes. Siamese cats do show up in the film, but they're regulated to background characters in the final number. There's also some entirely nonsensical things said throughout the film. "A cat has three names, one it has at birth, it's true name that it shares with those that are important, and a third name." What the hell is their third name? It's never stated, so I guess that was helpful. At least Dark Souls lets you speculate, here there's no room or material for that. That aside, there is an admirable dedication to preserving the original language of the film, and it's pretty verbose, so at the very least you'll learn some new words. That's not all, there's also this really bizarre sexual tension throughout the film. Victoria literally makes eyes at everybody throughout the film (especially during each of the characters' numbers), and to be entirely honest I half-expected the film to go a very different direction. Fortunately for myself, it didn't, and I was graced with the immortal and unforgettable takeaway that "A cat is not a dog". Gee, thanks.

Why do some cats have clothes and others don't? Are they just being extra? Are they like Adam and Eve who have only half-realized their nakedness? It's a toss-up as to whether even God knows the answer to these questions.

In terms of CATS' technical aspects, I'm going to be straight up with you, it's an absolute fucking disaster. The cats are creepy hybrids of humans and cats. They have cat-like features like ears and whiskers, but they also have unsettling human features like breasts, faces, and hands. It's like a film filled with werecats. In a simple phrase, watching this film felt like watching softcore furry porn. It's actually uncanny, somehow nearly everything has at least a minor sexual undertone. This isn't just because of the sexual under and overtones, but also because they all look pretty damn naked. The cats themselves are nothing short of horrific to gaze upon, not even Lovecraft could dream up something as terrifying as cats with human features. However, what really changed my perception of the film was when my friend uttered with a mortified whisper in the silent theatre "The way they move, it's awful...". At that moment, all I could picture was the classic DOOM box art with the demons replaced with these abominable cats. I'm not even done with this point either, for these horrors aren't even consistent in their Mariana-Trench-deep-uncanny-valley nature. Their features aren't consistent throughout, and you'll often see hands with cat hair be suddenly hairless in later shots in the same scene (and for the record, nobody's hands were burned in this show, so there goes the only explanation). This even extends even their fucking faces, it's awful, they couldn't even decide on practical or CGI hair so they just did it on a case-by-case basis. They really should have stuck with the practical hair because at least we couldn't have to bear witness to these freaks of nature cavorting across the screen. This film has not one, but two cats for whom being fat is the punchline for humor (one of them is Rebel Wilson being a Rebel Wilson character), and it's just kind of gross. It works for Bustopher Jones because that's part of his character, that he's a glutton who enjoys the finer things in life, but two separate characters coming and going with the same defining feature within ten minutes is too much. There's also an absurd number of big-name actors in this, and it's incredibly baffling, because while they look like they're having some fun it just feels so strange. Taylor Swift is in this as an unnamed character who is apparently Macavity's partner in crime? We literally never meet her until she shows up like some sort of notable henchman, except we literally have never seen her before. Besides all that garbage though, I'm going to be honest, CATS isn't all that bad of a film technically, and much like the story, a lot of attention was given to preserving the stage production feeling of the film. The sets are actually exceptionally well-done, and though the scale is occasionally inconsistent, it's all done for the purposes of making the musical numbers work. Each location is visually distinct from each other, and because the film shows their relative location to one another it  helps make the film's events feel cohesive, like they take place on a single city block. Costumes (ironically) are also very good, and truthfully the cats who wear clothes can actually look pretty good, though I still don't understand why Skimbleshanks looks like he's about to commence a strip-show. It's not enough to save the film, but at least it shows that real effort, passion, and talent were put in at points in this monstrosity.

Mungojerry and Rumpleteezer's number is probably the highlight for creative set design with the altered scale, but like everything else it carries a good helping of bad mojo.

In conclusion, CATS isn't nearly as irredeemable as it's made out to be, but holy crap is it awful. It just fails on so many levels, especially on a visual level. Film is a visual medium, and if the average person is horrified to see the literal central focuses of the piece, then you know that you've take the wrong turn from the first. This film bears the dubious honor of being the only film that I've found the CGI unsettling, and I seriously hope that this hasn't awoken anything in me. I honestly would in the end recommend this film to other people to see because at the very least it's an amazing film to watch with friends (with audience commentary encouraged) and then the average person could get a taste of either PTSD or a night terror. Don't take your kids to see this though, because if someone as dense as me is picking up on sexual undertones this overt, then something's up. It's nothing explicit, but it's this strange pallor that hangs over much of the film. I honestly don't know what was going through people's heads when they made this film, and it's surprising that they didn't learn from Sonic (the same damn year too!), but one thing is for certain: CATS is a historic film, and a wake-up call for future Broadway adaptations to be better selected and made.

Ah Skimbleshanks, the only one of these cats who would be able to see the light of day without mass hysteria, though I can't vouch for peoples' reactions to a stripper-looking cat-thing to be positive...