Palace Cinemas, Broadway
I give this review 🐈 one cat out of five.
OK, OK in all seriousness, yes it still only gets 1 🐈 out of five, however I should say at least a few words as to why...
WARNING: I am a staunch Andrew Lloyd Webber (ALW) and musical theatre generally fan.
For this particularly review, I have assumed a certain amount of prior knowledge of the musical CATS and therefore have not discussed plot/synopsis in this review, but rather this is just a bit of a ramble of my thoughts on the film:
I can confirm that this film is as weird/strange/ridiculous as everyone else is saying, although there are some redeeming qualities:
- Rebel Wilson, despite delivering some extremely corny lines which fell completely flat with the audience in the session I was in, she did a good job and added much-needed actual humour to the film, rather than the 'humour' the audience found throughout the film, which clearly wasn't intended.
- The sheer ambition of Director, Tom Hooper to make something of this I applaud his efforts, however ultimately, the film just didn't work for me.
- The new song written for the film, "Beautiful Ghosts", which has garnered a Golden Globe nomination for best original song (and I will not be surprised if an Oscar nom follows).
For me, "Beautiful Ghosts" was the best part of this film. Closely followed by Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat's number (very catchy and stuck to ALW's original).
It horrifies me to say that the usually amazing and competent Jennifer Hudson utterly murdered, yes murdered, the famed signature song "Memory" which was a real tragedy and not something I will get over quickly (I adore that song).
As a long-time musical theatre (and staunch ALW ) fan (albeit Cats has never made my Top 20!) I thought perhaps, me of all people, may buck the trend and actually like the film, however, unfortunately, ultimately it is a flop. It starts off well enough and is intriguing to see how the actors manifest themselves as felines as well as the curiosity surrounding the CGI, but after about 20 minutes, it really just gets ridiculous.
And yes, Judi Dench's ringed human finger was certainly not missed, however, that issue was well beyond what worried me about the film by the time it came around. I was already lost in the utter hot mess and ridiculousness of the execution of the already extremely light material (entirely T S Eliot's and scriptwriter Lee Hall's fault) to worry about human cats having human fingers!
Overall, very disappointing.
🐈
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