Having just watched “Cats,” the movie version of the hit musical about something called “Jellicle cats,” it is clear that “Jellicle” must be cat-speak for “wackadoodle.”
Of course, cats don’t actually speak. Neither do they wear red pants with suspenders or dance all sexy-like in front of a miniature chorus line of human hoofers dressed up like cockroaches — all in competition to be selected for ascension to heaven (called the Heaviside layer here), where, presumedly, the winner of the contest, called the Jellicle Ball, will be reincarnated in the next of nine lives.
And that, dear friends, is the last attempt at a synopsis that you will read in this review. Some people say that “Cats” — based on the silly little 1939 children’s book “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” by poet T.S. Eliot, set to music in 1981 by Andrew Lloyd Webber and now adapted for the screen by Tom Hooper (“The Danish Girl”) — has no plot. But by “plot” they probably mean “point.” And by “some people,” I mean me.
But it is what it is, and boy is it ever.
This is not to say that “Cats” the movie is the same as “Cats” the stage play — not by a long shot. The long-running live show featured people in cat makeup, wigs and furry, striped bodysuits that made them look like a troupe of Russian acrobats auditioning for Cirque du Soleil. “Cats” the movie features prestigious performers from stage, screen, music and dance — including Jennifer Hudson, Sir Ian McKellan, Dame Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Rebel Wilson, James Corden and ballerina Francesca Hayward — all tricked out in digitally generated fur that is simultaneously so lifelike and so creepily hallucinatory that the cast looks like a colony of feral felines who have taken up permanent residence in the uncanny valley.
None of this is by way of saying that “Cats” is bad, per se. In fact, some of the songs are pretty toe-tapping at times, and the dancing is well choreographed for the screen, by Andy Blankenbuehler. Wisely or rashly, the film embraces the decisions its creative team has made — which include a set decorated with oversize furniture to make the cats look smaller — with a commitment that is admirable, if also, inevitably, off-putting to a large part of the potential audience.
But those people were never going to see “Cats” in the first place.
As catlike as they may look, the cats in “Cats” are not really cats at all. It feels odd to have to type that out, but some people continue to make the mistake of thinking the musical is a love song to their pets. As Old Deuteronomy (Dench) sings toward the end of the film, “You’ve learned enough to take the view that cats are very much like you.” So it does have a point after all: Cats are people.
That certainly will be enough for some. One other thing to be learned from watching “Cats”: For people who like this sort of thing — and you know who you are — “Cats” is just the sort of thing you will like.
MOVIE REVIEW
“Cats”
Grade: C
Starring James Corden, Judi Dence and Jason Derulo. Directed by Tom Hooper.
Rated PG but contains peril, some mature thematic elements and rude humor. At metro theaters. 2 hour, 49 minutes.
Bottom line: It has toe-tapping tunes, but it's not for everyone
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