Cats (2019)

It was so hard to decide whether or not to see Cats.  When the first trailer hit, the internet exploded with memes making fun of the special effects.  When the actual movie hit the theaters, most of the reviews were scathing.  But when I actually read the reviews, they didn’t really say anything that sounded so bad to me.

Here’s the thing:  Most of the movie’s reviewers haven’t seen the play.  Most of them wouldn’t like the play.  Most of the complaints I saw in the reviews could just as easily have described the play.  The play is long.  It is operatic, with very little dialogue.  It is surreal.  It is silly and weird.  It is oddly sexual in places.  I really can’t imagine most people liking it, but I love it.

Of the reviewers who actually mentioned that they hadn’t seen the play, 100% hated the movie.  But I don’t care about them.  The only ones I took to heart were the ones where the reviewer mentioned being a fan of the play.  Out of those, roughly half of the reviewers loved it, and half hated it.  Those that hated it mentioned changes they’d made from the play, a cast that just doesn’t put their heart into it the way the stage actors do (which could just be the difference between recording in a sound booth vs. projecting yourself to a live audience), and of course everyone mentioned the special effects.  The few people who loved it said the same things I’ve been saying: It’s supposed to be weird.

So now that I’ve finally seen it, I have to say…

*sigh*

Cats is not good.  As a fan of the play, I have to side with those who say that they changed too much.  I was in high school the first time I saw the play, and I liked the soundtrack so much that I bought it (on cassette tape, if that dates me), and often listened to it in the car on the way to school.   Yes, my friends thought I was weird, but what else was new.

For the most part, the theatrical versions of these songs aren't performed well.  They are hard to enjoy, because they're often broken up to make room for spoken lines or bad slapstick.  There was only one song in the theatrical version that I enjoyed, and that was "Macavity" (performed by Taylor Swift - her only song in the movie).  They also fiddled with the melodies.  One of my favorite songs in the play, "Mungo Jerry and Rumple Teaser", is almost unrecognizable in the movie.

They also tried too hard to give the movie a plot.  The play has almost no plot, it's mostly just unconnected songs about different cats.  There is an overall theme about how only one cat gets to go to their version of Heaven, but this is only touched on in two or three songs.  There's also a mini-plot about Old Deuteronomy getting kidnapped, but he's rescued in the very next song.

The movie milks those two subplots for all they're worth, at the price of decent performances.  In the movie, Macavity has this master plan of being selected to go to Heaven, so he's kidnapping the other cats in the running.  It's like they hoped a more fleshed-out story (still thin though it is) would appeal to a larger audience.  Instead, they slapped the core audience in the face, while failing to garner a broader appeal.

I could throw out more minor nitpicks, like how they made Growltiger (an in-unverse fictional character) into Macavity's partner, or all the failed attempts at humor using slapstick and fat jokes.  But overall it just wasn't fun, and didn't have any of the magic of the play.

The one thing I liked was what everyone else hated - the visuals.  I'm not saying they were good, not even remotely.  But they were strange and surreal enough to appeal to the weird part of my mind.  The characters reminded me of that Dreamcast game, Seaman.  

But I'm like that.  Give me something new and bad over something good that I've seen 1,000 times.   I don't care that the matting was terrible - it's a play.  You don't go to a live play expecting amazing effects; even the best plays often have the actors interact with papier-mâché horses.  And given how few people like musicals, you don't expect a movie based on a play to have a huge CGI budget.  Nothing on the screen was supposed to look realistic, it was supposed to give you a sense of wonder.  

Sense of wonder: Successfully tickled.  Everything else?  Meh.

Perfectly Cast Roles

In 1993, while in the theater for Jurassic Park, I saw the first teaser trailer for the 1994 Flintstones movie.  Note that this was before the internet was ubiquitous, so it wasn't common knowledge who had been cast for which upcoming movies.  The teaser didn't show any actual movie footage, it just played the theme song before cutting to Fred Flintstone's chest.  When the camera scrolled up and revealed that it was John Goodman, the audience cheered.

It's not that the movie looked like a "must watch", it's just that it was such a perfect casting.  I can't think of another actor in Hollywood history who would be a better match for that character. 

This is crazy, but just rewatching that teaser, and remembering the cheer, it almost brings tears to my eyes.  It was one of those perfect moviegoer moments, when everyone in the audience was equally delighted.  I won't say it reached "Cap grabs Thor's hammer" levels of audience camaraderie, but it was still a significant moment.  I don't usually like seeing movies with large crowds, but it's moments like that which make it worth it.

I got home from the theater and told my stepmother about it.  I asked her, "Guess who's playing Fred Flintstone?"  She thought about it for a moment, had a minor epiphany, and guessed correctly.  Because once you knew they were making a live action Flintstone movie, there was only one actor in that era who remotely fit the bill.  

For this blog, I'm not necessarily looking at actors who performed their role well.  I mean, Johnny Depp was the perfect Jack Sparrow, and no one else could ever do that role justice.  But Depp had the freedom to make that role his own, since it wasn't based on a previous character.  

I'm more looking at actors who had to play cartoon characters, or characters previously established by other actors, things like that.  And it doesn't matter if the end movie turned out to be good or not, or even if they played the role well.  It's the casting decision that I'm praising here, not the end result.

For example, Matthew Lillard did a great job as Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo movies.  But I can't say it counts as a perfect casting choice.  You'd never see Lillard in another movie and think, "He looks like Shaggy."  Honestly, his Scream costar Jamie Kennedy looked more like Shaggy at the time.  Lillard put his heart into the role and his Shaggy impression was spot on, but he still doesn't meet my qualifications for this blog.

But for an opposite example, Walter Matthau played Mr. Wilson in 1993's Dennis the Menace.  I have not seen this movie, and you probably haven't either.  It's got a 27% score on Rotten Tomatoes, which probably tells me all I need to know.  But I don't care how bad the movie was, casting Matthau was genius.  In other movies he looks and acts so much like Mr. Wilson, that there really couldn't have been any other choice. 

The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) might fit both categories.  Certainly some of the actors are doing their damndest to mimic the original show, while others are just perfectly cast and being themselves.  This is probably true for a bunch of movies based on old TV shows.  

Men in Black 3 had Josh Brolin playing young Tommy Lee Jones.  His impression is spot on, and I think he was perfectly cast.  But you want to hear something funny?  I had to look that up on IMDB, because I could have sworn it was Joaquin Phoenix, not Josh Brolin.  To be fair I haven't seen the movie since it came out in 2012, but I can't believe I got the two actors confused.  Brolin was well cast, but I think Phoenix would also have played the role really well.

I'd love to list more roles I consider perfectly cast, but then I'd never get this blog posted, because I'd keep waiting to think of more.  But the granddaddy of them all, the king of perfectly cast actors, has to go to... 

*drumroll please*

J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man franchise.  He is perfect, the rest of you can go home now, the award for best casting has been won forever.  QED.