I saw Cats in London’s West End a couple of years back and since that day I have repeatedly told people that its the worst theatre show I have ever seen. It wasn’t that the actors weren’t doing incredibly and seeing the shows hit song Memory performed on stage was every bit as amazing as I expected – I just didn’t get the show. I thought the set itself was quite dated and I just didn’t understand what on earth was going on. Despite this I have to admit that I have never dashed to a cinema so quick to see a film. The trailer looked so good and I hoped the film would help me piece together the parts of the musical that I just didn’t understand.
I walked into the cinema with below low expectations, how was I supposed to enjoy a film that I have spent years telling people not to go and see on stage? I went in with an open mind and nearly two hours later, I walked out having surprisingly enjoyed every second of the movie. I wouldn’t normally write a blog post like this as I absolutely don’t watch anywhere near enough films to know what is critically a good film to judge it but as Cats is getting slated in the press later I thought it was worth mentioning my opinions.
For those who are unfamiliar with Cats, it follows the story of the tribe of cats known as the Jellicle cats who meet up yearly to decide which member of the tribe will be chosen to go to the Heaviside Layer for the chance to new life. You experience the Jellicle choice through the eyes of Victoria, a cat who gets abandoned on the evening of the Jellicle cats meeting and gets shown the ropes by the group. In order to be considered to be chosen for the opportunity to be selected for the Heaviside Layer, the cats must sing and explain who they are and why they should be chosen.
The main reason why I didn’t enjoy the stage production is that it was just full of so many cats prancing around quite a boring stage set up for three hours and it was just a little boring. Although this is basically what the film is too, the different scenes really made it interesting to watch. Despite what the reviews are saying, I thought the Cats film was visually stunning. My personal favourite example of this is very early on in the film where the Jellicle cats are dancing around a Cat name tweaked London. I truly thought this scene was delightful to watch and really captured my attention from the word go. Whilst discussing how this movie looks I must mention how much I love the movie poster. I think it is beautiful and if the cinema sold movie posters I would absolutely have bought it to frame for my wall.
Cats is a very star studded cast and for non musical theatre fans this is likely to be the main drawer of this film. From popular celebrities such as James Corden to film legends like Ian McKellen to famous singers like Taylor Swift – this cast will have someone that everyone who see’s this film will like. To be honest, I would’ve seen this film without the celebrity casting but it was a nice added bonus to see some of my personal favourite celebrities in this film and on the whole I thought they were all very well cast for the role. Again, despite what reviews are saying, I actually liked how well they were turned into Cats.
The movie stays relatively true to the stage production and that comes complete with the full musical score. Most of the film is largely driven by musical numbers and I think the musical nature should’ve been advertised more in the trailer. Personally, although I never enjoyed the stage show you can’t deny that the music in Cats is its real selling point and the movie did the songs justice. However, I feel like the large musical element may come as a shock to some watches of the movie. What I enjoyed about the movie too is that they added in a song for Victoria, something that was distinctly lacking in the stage show. The new song, Beautiful Ghosts, is very fitting with the film and I can only hope they find a way to weave it into the stage show too as it would be a real shame to not use it.
The plot I have to admit is relatively boring. You’re introduced to so many Cats in so little time and you don’t get to know enough about them to particularly care about any of them. The story is about all of these cats auditioning for the chance to go to the Heaviside Layer but as a viewer you never care enough about any of them to want them to be chosen as they’re all only on screen telling their story for 10 minutes max. Even when the bad guy cat Macavity (played by Idris Elba) comes along to sabotage anyone’s chance of winning you don’t really care if he does or not as you’re not invested enough in the characters to be bothered who wins the opportunity.
Overall I loved this film. I think I probably liked it so much as I had prior knowledge of Cats and I knew what the plot was and that it could be quite odd at times so when watching the movie I could just appreciate it for what is was rather than criticising the plot. I left pleasantly surprised about how much I enjoyed the film. Would I recommend it to others? Well, I didn’t hear one positive comment about the movie as we filtered out of the cinema screen, however I think if you do your research on the stage show before hand and like that then give the film a go! Don’t always listen to the reviews, you may be pleasantly surprised like I was.
Have you seen the film? What did you think?
melissay 