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.
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.
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