Movie Review: 'Cats' is Weird

What the hell is a ‘Jellicle?’ I understand it has a root in a T.S Eliot poem, but even the venerable poet was rather nebulous about the conception. In the new movie adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Cats, I can only assume that Jellicle serves the same function as the word ‘Smurf’ does to the tiny blue people defined by that term. Jellicle is used to modify and describe numerous types of strange behavior in Cats and it never fails to baffle me at each use of it.

Cats stars newcomer Francesca Hayward as Victoria, a kitten abandoned in a bag in a French alley. Tossed away like trash, Victoria is welcomed to a new and bizarre world where so called Jellicle cats survive on the detritus of the French underground and prepare to compete in a baffling contest. We will get to the contest in a bit but first we must meet a few of the other players.

First there is Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild) an unofficial leader of the Jellicles who sings much of the early exposition of the movie. Munkustrap along with the magical Mr Mistoffelees (Laurie Davidson) become Victoria’s mentors, friends and perhaps more in the case of Mistofelees who appears immediately smitten with the kitten. The two introduce Victoria to the biggest players in the upcoming contest… because… the plot requires them to?

Here we meet Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson) a lazy house cat who spends her days training mice to sing and dance when she isn’t chowing down on cockroaches. Then we meet the equally sizable Bustopher Jones (James Corden), an incessant eater and scavenger who feeds everyone but only after he eats first. Looming dangerously in the background is Macavity (Idris Elba) who keeps ever so closely coming to destroy his fellow competitors.

The most important of all the cats is Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench). It is Old Deuteronomy who acts as the only judge deciding who will be the Jellicle Cat. Yes, as if Cats weren’t appallingly baffling enough, not only do all the cats refer to themselves as Jellicle but they are all competing to be called The Jellicle Cat and earn their way to a new life away from the grime and poverty of the Paris underground. Oh and Jennifer Hudson is there to as Grizabella the Glamour Cat.

Where do I begin analyzing Cats. Let’s start by saying how much I genuinely appreciate the ultimately misguided dedication of this cast. They had to know that what they were doing was completely off the charts insane and yet they committed fully to the craziness. Myself, I would have given up the ghost after I saw the first costume test. These ungodly catsuits are truly an astonishing sight, at once skintight and sexless.

Oh, don’t be mistaken, these cats are as weird and horny as anything Andrew Lloyd Webber has ever conceived, but the direction of Tom Hooper rounds down the more problematic edges of Webber’s creations, leaving the movie in this uncanny valley of attractive people resembling humans but in baffling costumes that are at once too much and not enough. The costumes are jarring combinations of actors, makeup, practical costumes and horrific CGI.

The challenge facing director Tom Hooper was a daunting one that he proves not to have been up for. Cats the Musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber doesn’t actually have a narrative. The musical is a series of musical vignettes and large dance sequences that build toward the crescendo of Webber’s most famous song, “Memories.” So, because this is a movie, Hooper is forced by convention to try to impose a story over Webber’s catty madness and he never finds the combination that works.

Director Hooper and co-screenwriter Lee Hall appear desperate to be faithful to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s vision of Cats, no matter how insane that vision truly is. Then again, in thinking it over, I imagine it is Hooper who has to take the blame for how Rebel Wilson’s scenes are filmed, with a horrifying, stultifying choreography and choices like having tiny people dressed as cockroaches who end up being snacks for Wilson’s cat.

Hooper also must take the blame for the performance of Idris Elba as Macavity. Idris Elba is not a great singer, at least based on the evidence of this movie. In Cats, Elba sounds like he is singing through an ever present, just about to happen, barely stifled cough. Macavity’s back story is weird and confusing, he has magical powers and is also a criminal? How can a cat be a criminal and have magical powers? What the hell is happening?

There is no dignity in Cats, it’s all a cringing embarrassment. Dame Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen sound desperately uncomfortable under layers of makeup as they layer in decrepitude as a character trait; their old and they make us know it in ways that are more uncomfortable and disquieting than they are just simple truths about these characters. As each of them croaked their way through songs, I worried for the health of the actors and whether the oddball prosthetics were too much for them, which I assume was not the intended effect.

Jennifer Hudson at least gets to belt out a big belter of a ballad in 'Memories.' Unfortunately, her Grizabella is so underwritten and understated that her big emotional moment barely resonates. She’s not present throughout most of the story, she shows up as needed in the narrative. That’s likely a blessing for Hudson who doesn’t have to suffer the costumes for nearly as long as everyone else but it does little for our emotional connection to this blundering story.

Cats is deeply misguided. Tom Hooper attempted to catch lightning in a bottle as he did in 2013 with Les Miserables and instead, this time, was struck by that same lightning and dies horrifically upon stage.