Five Reasons Why Cats 2019 Might Be the Best Movie Ever Made

Who can forget the month of December, 2019. It might’ve been cold, depending on where you lived. Snowy, or whatever. You might have been preparing to celebrate your holiday of choice, or else winding down in the wake of that holiday. The nightly news shows were filled with the first whispers of the oncoming covid-19 pandemic, but the cinemas were filled with magic! Finally, after many decades of success on the stage, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most glorious musical had arrived to bless the big screen!

I am speaking, of course, of the super shiny, super awesome, incandescently CGI-tastic spectacle that was Cats, as directed by Tom Hooper. Critics panned it, but they might have been wrong. Maybe. Or maybe I am wrong. I (think) have very good taste and I am (maybe) very smart. I am here to let you know why Cats 2019 was in fact (possibly) the best movie ever made. Of course, it is well within your rights to disagree. Clearly whoever was in charge of approving submissions here on Vocal did:

I’ll try not to come on too strong in this revision. I‘m not sure how to keep personal beliefs out of a movie review, but I think I can reign myself in and be less assertive about them. For the remainder of this piece, please assume that I am discussing my love of Cats in an exceedingly unassertive whisper instead of an aggressive shout.

Anyway…. 😇

Although there are a million reasons why Cats 2019 was mind bogglingly magnificent (maybe), in the interest of brevity, I’ve narrowed it down to five.

(Disclaimer: I might be wrong about everything.)

1. So many famous actors!!

Full disclosure, I watch approximately one new movie every two years. I don’t like movies. As such, Cats was my first exposure to cinematic greats such as Judy Dench and Sir Ian McKellen. Through it, I’ve been able to form nuanced opinions on them as actors. It will help me carry on conversations with their fans. McKellen’s delivery of that one scene where Gus the Theatre Cat drinks the milk was especially stirring and emotional.

2. Fat representation!!

As a fat person who is fat, it sure was nice to see fat cats played by fat actors. Watching Jennyanydots feed her insatiable appetite on the flesh of unsettling human-faced cockroach ladies made me feel recognized. James Cordon as Bustopher Jones really captured the eternal struggle that the more rotund among us face when being tempted to our doom with food scraps. I too experience that. Daily.

3. The CGI was… Different!!

If I wanted to see the creative costumes that made Cats so famous in the first place, I could just see the show on stage. If I found myself in one of those rare and harrowing circumstances in which I lacked the ability to find a unitard-clad theatre troupe pretending to be felines in my general vicinity, I always had the option of watching the 1992 film. It takes guts to introduce the weird and unsettling into a classic and successful work of art. Tom Hooper and like a bunch of computer people or whatever took a chance! That is admirable!

Furthermore, the human noses, hands, and feet made the cat people more memorable. If I wanted to see a cat with a typical cat nose, I could do that literally anywhere. Only Cats 2019 offers cats with human noses. Cats with human noses are special and good.

4. Mistoria 4eva!! ❤️❤️

Dear reader, I realize it’s possible that you have not been entrenched in the Cats fandom since sixth grade. You might not know about the ship wars. Oh yes. The ship wars. You see, the song “Magical Mr. Mistoffelees” is usually sung by Rum Tum Tugger in the stage show. People have taken this to mean that Tugger is obviously into Misto (…or maybe they are siblings, but they probably are not). Anyway, since Rum Tum Tugger does not sing Magical Mr. Mistoffelees in Cats 2019, there is plenty of room for an explicit romance between Misto and Victoria. Personally, I prefer Misto/Tugger, but I can appreciate that the movie made a definitive choice on who Mistoffelees ended up with. The love life of scary cat people is very important and it is a relief that the movie did not leave the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

5. Pirate subplot!

There have always been pirates in Cats (except in the productions in which Growltiger’s Last Stand was rightfully removed for having some very unfortunate implications). However, the idea to add an entire subplot about all the one song side characters being abducted to a pirate ship? Inspired! I mean, it’s not like Cats ever had a plot before. Anything is a step up from nothing.

…….

Okay. Time to get serious. I don’t actually think Cats 2019 was one of the best movies ever made. I will argue forever about the merits of Cats the stage musical, but we all know 2019 was a dumpster fire. That said, I was terribly amused by it, and continue to be, even though three years have passed. I guess that means I liked it. Oh well. I can pretend this article was trolling. I can pretend it was clickbait. However, I can’t deny the nugget of truth in it. Cats 2019 was fun. So there. Liking it means that I am quirky and cool. Everybody should admire me.

The one genuinely good thing that I can say about Cats 2019 was that it wasn’t boring. Sometimes “not boring” is good enough. At least that’s what I try to tell myself when I produce objectively bad and weird pieces of writing.

As Andrew Lloyd Webber once told me: “Jellicles can and Jellicles do!”*

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*Disclaimer: I have never been directly spoken to by Andrew Lloyd Webber. I just assume that’s what he would want to tell me. Hopefully he and his emotional support dog are having a good day. If he or anybody else would like to make a terrible film of Starlight Express, I’d really appreciate it, so they should probably hurry up and get on that.