“I remember the time I knew what happiness was”

– “Memory”, Cats

Look what the cat dragged in: utter garbage. There are few things I regret more in my life than watching Cats. I do wonder when Auguste and Louis Lumière patented the cinematograph, that they knew that their work would one day result in Tom Hooper adapting Andrew Lloyd Webber’s bewildering, but well-meaning, stage production into one of the most unsettling pieces of filmmaking ever committed to screen, something truly ungodly in both form and content. In no uncertain terms, Cats could quite possibly be one of the worst films I’ve seen in over a decade – and that’s barely an exaggeration. This is not the entertaining disaster that we anticipated (and hoped) it would be, but rather an affront to everything that we hold sacred about the performing arts, and filmmaking in general. I’m not sure what Cats is – it’s certainly not a good film, and to call it a bad film seems like too much of an understatement. In fact, calling it a film is already too generous. Tom Hooper does something that could be considered very close to criminal, adapting a musical that had delighted audiences for decades, as well as polarizing those who didn’t understand the purpose of the show (don’t look at me for the answer, I like the show and still couldn’t tell you what it’s about, but it’s entertaining none the less – the complete opposite of this film) into an uncomfortable jumble of poor decisions, unsettling imagery and utter banality that leads absolutely nowhere, and devolves into one of the most singularly unpleasant cinematic experiences of the past few years. I doubt any logical person would’ve predicted Cats to be very good – at best, we were all hoping that it would be a piece of entertaining camp, a messy but audacious attempt to bring one of the most beloved musicals of all time to the screen and to introduce this bizarre but memorable work to a wider audience. What none of us were expecting was to be presented with a film that can only be described as insidious garbage, and something that isn’t only unforgivable because of how it wastes the time of everyone involved in the film, including the doe-eyed viewers who expected to find something enthralling, but commits so many violations of basic artistry, and still somehow manages to be extraordinarily boring along the way. What a complete and utter travesty of a film.

After seeing Cats, I have seen sights no human should ever have to see – and the fact that this film is out in the ether, where any innocent person can fall victim to what they’d expect would be a good time, is truly disturbing. This is not a good film at all – in fact, this is a profoundly dangerous film because it lures viewers in with the promise of being a bewitching foray into fantasy when it is nothing less than an unhinged, horrifying ordeal. It doesn’t feel like something that contributes to the culture at all, and even could be considered regressive, because every choice made in this film seems completely contradictory to everything we’ve come to associate with good filmmaking. We’ve seen so many stage musicals brought to the screen, many of them being masterpieces, others being less successful, but still having their merits, because even the worst screen musicals tend to at least be entertaining. I’d argue that Hooper completely betrays Lloyd Webber’s already-polarizing musical by ruining the spirit of the show, and that had someone else made it (perhaps a filmmaker with both a distinct style, a sense of humour and even just a little bit of talent), it could’ve been a much better film. However, this would suggest that we actually needed a Cats musical in the first place. Right from the outset, it’s important to mention how singularly unnecessary this film was – it’s hard to imagine anyone actively wanting to see a film adaptation of the show – there’s enough out there already to satisfy even the most ardent admirers of the musical. The reason is not only because so much of the charm of the production comes from the spectacle of seeing it live, where every merit remains within the realm of the live performance, but also because this is a musical that premiered forty years ago, and while it is still radically successful, it feels almost irrelevant to make the film now. It’s a relic of a show, in the same way many long-running musicals tend to be. Add to this that Cats has the added shortcoming of not being particularly easy to imagine outside of the stage, and you can already see why Hooper was engaging in a fool’s errand in trying to adapt it, because there was very little chance that Cats could ever be brought to the screen in a way that would actually be anything less than an unmitigated disaster (with the exception of a fully-animated film, which I’m surprised never got made, while this atrocity did). Whether for the sake of financial gain, or the earnest belief that they were making something audiences would actually respond to, the reason behind adapting Cats is so deeply ambigious, it almost feels sinister.

The problem is that Cats could have been such a fun film at the very least, but Hooper – a director who is certainly not ever associated with subtlety or nuance – somehow once again brought his heavy-handed style to the one work that most certainly didn’t need his seriousness and lack of refinement. What has made previous productions of the show so successful is that, while not really much of a comedic work, everyone knew how absurd the concept was, and they endeavoured to have a good time, which ultimately results in the audience having fun as well, because when you have something with as strange a premise as this, the only way to avoid complete annihilation of logic is to not take it too seriously? The film goes the complete other direction – it truly believes itself to be a massively impressive work, a magical piece of far-fetched fiction designed to enthral viewers of all ages and lead them into another world in the same way many of the most beloved fantasy films that define many of our younger years tended to. The difference is that Cats is not anywhere close to being that effective as a story, with the shortcomings in the story being compensated for in the live spectacle, which distracts from the narrative inconsistencies. This certainly doesn’t stop Hooper from making it appear as if this film is the most potent work of fantasy of the decade – everything about it is delivered with such a deep sobriety to the premise, the irony of what is essentially an extraordinarily surreal work is lost in the shuffle, as Hooper and his co-conspirators launch into this project from the completely wrong direction, choosing to go for the big-budget blockbuster rather than something that paid tribute to a legendary stage musical. Cats, for better or worse, is an iconic part of popular culture, and the film completely eviscerates every bit of goodwill in its decision to be a relatively lazy affair, where there is a complete lack of any energy or enchantment, and where everything this film tries to do completely falls flat, as if those making it genuinely think watching a group of grown adults trotting around like cats should be taken seriously, which they certainly seem to believe.

This film is built on the basis of pure anarchy, and no one involved does anything to ground it, being too oblivious to what the final product was going to be to actually stop and reconsider their involvement. It’s not very clear exactly where Cats went wrong – there was an almost apathetic approach to the source material, insofar as the filmmakers avoided actually engaging in the very spirit of the original production, choosing to go for something broader, making this one of the rare instances where something is enormously bombastic without even an iota of audacity. Had Hooper taken a risk with this film, we could’ve at least praised him for trying to do something with the material – but he ultimately just makes a film that oscillates between utterly boring and outright terrifying. This is quite literally a repulsive film – the sensation of seeing the intersections between live-action and computer-generated imagery has never been this nauseating, and if this film is good for anything, it’s as a case study for future research into the subject of the uncanny valley and how the way reality is warped in this film only serves to unsettle the audience, rather than inciting the awe and wonder they clearly imagined it would. On a purely technical level, the fact that Cats was given approval for release while looking the way it did leads me to believe that this was nothing more than a very expensive practical joke, one that can’t even have merits as a work of camp, because it’s far too languorous to be remotely entertaining. One of the worst parts of this film is that when it’s not repellent to any self-respecting viewer, it’s thoroughly boring. Hooper deserves some kind of recognition (or perhaps some form of judicial hearing) for directing a film that is both deeply revolting and mindlessly tedious. That’s an impressive achievement if there ever was one, and is probably exactly what this film warranted  – the problem is, the audience did absolutely nothing to deserve this calamity of a film, and I think we’re all left at a disadvantage having had to experience this lurid, agonizing film that really serves the singular purpose of polluting the modern cinematic landscape.

Not only is Cats a complete failure on a technical level, but it also refuses to put in the effort to find even a single decent performance, which is astonishing considering how star-studded this cast was. This film was less of a chance for these actors to have fun, and more a way of atoning for whatever debauchery they were being blackmailed with in order to agree to sign onto this cataclysmic excuse for a film. There has rarely been a cast assembled that is this mismatched, and while eclectic ensembles have worked extremely well in the past, the disaster it ends up being here is almost unprecedented. Just going through the list of performances is a chore itself – James Corden, who could possibly lay claim to the least charismatic actor working today, is first billed, which is already the first sign of trouble. Promptly followed by the likes of Taylor Swift, who clearly forced her way into this film, probably as payment for the atrocious song she wrote being very prominent throughout, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba and Rebel Wilson, who truly lives up to her reputation as being one-note, something that she has worked extremely hard over the past few years to shed, but regresses with extraordinary ferocity here. The only two actors in the film who seem to be in are the joke are Dame Judi Dench, who gives a high-camp performance as the fur coat-clad Old Deuteronomy (the only true joy in this film was seeing her actually understand the complete stupidity of this film, whether it be trotting down a cobbled road, breaking the fourth wall or stretching out in an enormous basket – I never thought I’d ever write these three sentences in succession) and Sir Ian McKellen, who gets the irony of the role, but still can’t help from silently cry out for help. Cats feels like a hostage situation for many of these actors, with the film appearing to be a punishment more than anything else. However you feel about any of them, not a single one of these actors deserved this film, and it’s almost certain that had they known how this film would use them, none of them would have agreed to it in the first place. This is the first time a film consisting of entirely bad performances can’t be blamed on the cast at all, because when you’re at the mercy of Tom Hooper and the producers who trust him enough to turn the most bizarre of musicals into a big-budget film, there’s nothing you can do other than hope for the best, and hope that you can recover from having experienced the worst possible version of this story.

No matter how hard you look, there’s just nothing redeemable about Cats. There are a few brief moments where it seems to realize its complete absurdity, but these are so fleeting, they’re almost inconsequential and are just flashes of hope in an otherwise pointless film. There is so much this film does wrong – it’s overwrought, badly-made (Hooper was the wrong choice to helm this film because while he did do relatively well with Les Misérables, he doesn’t have the self-awareness needed to translate this material to the screen) and often just too unsettling to be anything close to entertaining. Not to reignite a very common joke, but this film is truly a catastrophe in so many ways. It lacks the buoyancy and charm of the source, and it descends into a very dark and sinister place, where the confusion is far too common for this film to be entertaining, or even endearing, in any way. The intention behind Hooper’s version of Cats is not something I think I want to know, because there is something quite unsettling about the way he approaches this beloved musical, making decisions that see the charm of Lloyd Webber’s work eroding and becoming a laborious, disconcerting and incredibly unnatural experience. It’s insane without being audacious, excessive without being theatrical and disorienting in the same way that a bad acid trip would be. The film is just a complete failure, and while there are many bad films produced every year, they mostly tend to retain some honour or dignity. Cats is just an embarrassment to filmmaking in innumerable ways, and is an indefensible excuse of a movie. They say curiosity killed the cat, but Cats killed those curious about seeing exactly what dreadful, tasteless farce Tom Hooper disguised as a film.