Cats - The Movie

The trailers we got were Little Women, David Copperfield, Blythe Spirt and Military Wives.

Ooh, how did BS look? Just checked and it's not online yet...

Il be over at lunchtime to pick up the keys....😝

GS also opened $2.5 million more in uk opening weekend than Cats has....

Cats and the Movie Musical - today at midday on Sky One.

Let's wait and see what the total take is before I call the removal firm.

So now that they are distributing the ‘better’ version to every cinema in the world where do we stand with getting a refund/free tickets to the proper version?!?

Obviously the version I saw the other day wasn’t finished to the filmmakers specification so why were we allowed to buy a shoddy product?!?!

.....than come on a forum and post a comment?
or go see Cats twice?!
i think it’s obvious I don’t! ☹️

That’s different thou. That wasn’t 3 days after it opened

Well as a huge fan of the stage musical (the New London version along with the original Starlight Express is what got me in to musical theatre) this is a fascinating topic.

I saw the film on Friday and have been trying to compose my thoughts since then.

Certainly it's not amazing and I think that the fact that the mode, median and mean of our poll above is 3 stars is much more accurately representative of the product than the absolute savaging it's getting in the media.

The CGI is probably the least worthy thing of comment for me but as the world feels differently let's start with that. I think it's fine. Yes it's a bit weird but it's fine. I got used to it in the first 5 minutes as I am sure anyone actually watching the thing would have too if they were honest. Yes they have gone with human faces and figures morphed into Cats and yes it can be odd. No doubt there are things which stick out and look daft (Dame Judy's hand complete with wedding ring; a few very human feet) and I assume these are being addressed in the ongoing work. But the constant tinkering with the CGI is going to make such a minuscule difference to the overall feel of the thing, as to be almost irrelevant.

Cats has to have a leap of imagination and faith. It works in the theatre. How do you do this on film? I honestly don't know. And I think part of the problem is that this is a film that should never have been made. Theatre is a different beast and Cats is SO inherently theatrical, I just can't see how you can translate that to film. So people don't like the CGI. I understand. But what are the options? Well, at one extreme you have no CGI and you have humans dressed up as Cats, just as the stage show. That of course has been done already with the straight to DVD film in the 90s. And it's great. Probably couldn't be bettered. The other extreme is you ditch the humans altogether and have actual CGI Cats - like the Lion King re-make. But all the choreography was designed for human Cats so it would never have worked either. So I do think they were stuck where they ended up.

My own personal opinion is that the CGI was OK. So on to other things......

The story. This is my biggest bug bear. In 1981 you had people at the top of their theatrical game bringing this Cats world to life. ALW, Trevor Nunn, Gillian Lynne, John Napier, David Hersey. It's creative Heaven. An iconic set of poems by TS Elliot. Different characters presenting themselves. Trevor Nunn understood the material and with ALW wove a very vague narrative through the poems and of course wrote Memory but all based on scraps of TSE's unpublished work. A vague concept of a Kitty Heaven and a new life was integrated. It was dreamy, spiritual, deeply creative. Essentially a ballet but with rockier music. At the climax, strings of fairy lights, enough dry ice to drown half the Stalls, a flying tyre, a descending staircase and EP disappearing in to the roof of the New London as the music crescendos - you can't get much more theatrical than that. Now of course it wasn't for everyone. People would come out and say "there's no story." But I think they just didn't get it. It wasn't for them and that's fine. But I think there is a beautifully simple spiritual story about redemption and rebirth. And whatever people's personal opinion, enough people 'got' Cats to give it 21 years in the West End.

So for the film, of course the producers are thinking, they are going out to the masses. And the masses can't cope with a vague ballet like story. It has to be obvious. So we have them constantly spelling it out. Not in TSE's words but someone else's. And it's jarring. We have to have a baddie. So Macavity wants to be the one to go to the Heaviside Layer so he kidnaps Rebel Wilson, James Corden etc etc and shoves them on a barge in the Thames. Dame Judi says to Victoria 'do you want to come and watch me make the Jellicle choice' and it sounds plain wrong. You can't take poetry that people will use their own feelings to interpret and make it so literal. Whereas in the show the concept of the Jellicle choice and the Heaviside layer work; when they are rammed down out throats in the film they just sound ridiculous.

The next thing I felt it lacked was spectacle. So much of it takes place inside that disused theatre, it is claustrophobic. One of the great creatively releasing parts of film compared to the stage is that action can take place anywhere. I really liked the sections in Piccadilly Circus and for example when Skimble goes across the Thames with Big Ben behind him. Yes please to more London scenery! Then the Jellicle Ball - in the theatre, half way through, all the fairy lights come on and it looks gorgeous. Coupled with Lynne's amazing choreography it was just amazing. Here we had no extra light and no big ensemble dancing. All the Cats seemed to dance a bit on their own, with everyone else watching. Just felt a bit flat. Mr Mistoffeles, another very visual moment in the show, in the film kept stopping and starting and was just a bit boring. And as for the high point on the whole piece, Journey To The Heaviside Layer, most kids doing GCSE computing could have probably designed something more exciting.

The cast? Well, anyone that has heard me talk on here will know that I'd love nothing more than to have musical theatre actors belting things out note perfect; but of course we have to have names! But in fairness most were better than expected. Wilson and Corden I was most worried about but they seemed to sing ok (helped by auto-tune no doubt). That said they were still the weakest. Also wasn't Bustopher meant to be an aristocrat rather than a slob in a bin? Rest of the cast were pretty good though. Dame Judi and Sir Ian can't sing so they speak sing. I really don't like speak singing but I didn't mind it here - they are both absolute legends so let them do what they want I say.

That's all the negative. Despite all that I DID enjoy it and will go again. I'd give it three stars I guess. Not a patch on the stage show, but given this was always going to be flawed, I think they gave it a good go and I was entertained.

The music I thought was great. Listening to the CD at home, with none of the distraction of the visuals I really liked it. Some of the updated orchestrations and the new rhythms in for example Jellicle Songs and Bustopher I really liked. Skimbleshanks too in fact. Memory, given it was never going to be sung pure MT style is very good. (Though Heaven knows, Scherzinger must be relieved she never got involved. Oh and that reminds me, I am waiting for #EP to break her silence!). The music being one of the big plusses, I really hope they do release a double CD of the whole soundtrack. Have to say given all the media negativity, I do think they might not bother now.

Thinking about taking sung through musicals to film in general, Les Mis and Phantom were also big disappointments. For me the problem is this. You have people like ALW who understand musical theatre entirely. It is their world. But they do NOT understand film. It is a completely different medium. Then you have directors who work in film, but they really do not understand (sung through) musicals. Then you combine this with the perception (I have no idea if it's true) that the vast filmgoing public cannot cope with (and do not want) sung through musicals, sung as written in the score. So you have added talking and the dire speak singing of Les Mis. And it's a combination that cannot work. It pleases nobody. For me personally, I would like to see films of sung through musicals admitting before they are made that they are going to be niche (for musical lovers), having a lower budget, and staying as close as possible to the source material. While they may not make mega bucks, they would be artistically great, have longevity and I honestly think producers might be pleasantly surprised that they do better than expected.

I wonder how this will affect ALW's enthusiasm for bringing other shows to film. It's certainly not gonna improve it. But whether or not he decides to stop doing it altogether remains to be seen. Sunset if they do make it I passionately feel MUST be a film of the musical in it's purest sense. It is never gonna have mass appeal so please let them go with something faithful to the stage show with those glorious songs sung to perfection with a huge film orchestra (I think it's beyond ridiculous to cast Glenn now, but that's, not for here). No idea what's happened to Elton John's Joseph (nothing, I expect). Off topic, but I also agree with everything Dave25 has said about the possible Miss Saigon film. Pleeeeeease just sing it and act through song, not in spite of it.

I also wonder how this will affect ALW generally. Despite the people that see Cats giving it 3 stars, the media have decided they hate it. Which is odd. I guess we live in a world of hyperbole. Politics in this county (well, everywhere) is going to the far Left and the far Right when what is logical and right for most people is something in the Centre. Is it driven by the social media world that we have to have such strong opinions? Some of the American stuff is so vastly overrated (Hamilton - good, but for me nothing like the hype) and Cats is laughably underrated. At worst it could be tedious and boring. It it wasn't your thing. But the critics are acting as if Cats is personally responsible for the death of Lady Diana.

So yes, I hope it doesn't affect ALW too much. (I know, I know, he's a multi-millionaire and the most successful living musical composer so he doesn't need sympathy...... but creatives are sensitive. And purely from a selfish perspective - I want him to keep writing musicals - I hope it's not too hard a knock). I remember reading in an ALW biography about 20 years ago that when Jeeves flopped and closed it didn't matter at all - anyone can have a failure. But when Starlight Express on Broadway was utterly savaged and then DIDN'T close (it ran for 18 months having taken a huge advance) it affected him badly. He hated what it had become apparently (it was so different to the London version) and it was there on Broadway, being panned, but he was powerless to do anything about it. The Cats film is like that. It is everywhere and he can't escape the reception it's getting. Stephen Ward for example came and went and really wasn't on the world's radar. It was a personal project and I don't think ever expected to be a big success. So I really don't think he minded it's short run. But this is really quite different.

So I think I hope he sticks to stage shows from now and draws a line under film.

And when the Cats hoo-hah has died down, I am greatly looking forward to ALW's Cinderella :-)

(Gosh that post went on forever - apologies!)

The Avatar characters were far weirder looking than this and people got used to those in 2 minutes. Of course that was a big dumb 'boy' movie though, so it didn't cop any backlash.

If this was a film where the cats looked exactly the same but were all running around with machine guns shooting each other, their appearance would not be a problem I'm sure...