Review by Cam Watson
What do we mean when we say a film is “bad?” I think it’s a somewhat difficult question. A film can have technical issues, it can be unengaging, its writing can be thin, and directors can sometimes make odd or confusing decisions that hurt the overall experience. Much of the reaction to Cats has focused on these things, as well as its admittedly baffling and unsettling aesthetic. However, sometimes thin writing can be its own kind of relaxing or fun. Oddity can likewise have its own charm and confusing decisions can sometimes be fun to try and interpret. By the same token, all of these things can culminate in such a disorienting and uniquely peculiar experience that its flaws become closer to features.
For some time, I have had a fascination with what my friend Andrew Swafford has referred to as “Scorched Earth Cinema,” which essentially refers to films so chaotically terrible and detached from reality and purpose that they threaten to invalidate the art form entirely. I had high hopes for other films in 2019 to fill this space for me (particularly miffed at the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog for caving on this one), but alas, none were quite up to the task. I was more or less prepared to give up on getting my awful masterpiece as the year came to a close. But Tom Hooper had other plans for me.
Tom Hooper, beckoning the world to behold his creation (2019, colorized)
Don’t get me wrong, Cats is an utterly uncomfortable experience (though the cultural fascination with the stage show was also pretty strange) in almost every regard. The writing, for instance, is wonky to the point of parody. As an example, we are told very early that every cat has 3 names: the name your family gives you, your REAL secret name, and then... ???. The third cat name is never expanded on, and this actually never comes up again. Dead ends like this show up all over – a product of having the majority of the film’s plot revolve around various cats introducing themselves – and practically none of them are resolved. In the closing moments of the film, Old Deuteronomy (the cats’ god-sage, played by Judi Dench) breaks the fourth wall and tells the audience that we have now learned that “cats are not dogs,” in what reads to me as a playful door-slam in our face.
Judi Dench, pictured here earning that check
Furthermore, the film’s overall aesthetic is jarring as it is unique. It almost exclusively utilizes three types of shots: unnerving close-ups of disturbing cat faces, weird shaky cam medium shots, and shots so wide and far away that you can barely tell what’s happening. I suppose I should go ahead and get this out of the way as well: each and every one of these cats is truly awful to look at. Some stand out as specifically awful (my vote goes to naked Macavity here), but the decision to just, sort of, paste a human face to the bottom half of a feline head never – and I mean NEVER – looks right. You never get used to it. Every single time one of these human-handed weirdos shows up to writhe suggestively at you, which is almost every frame of this film, you will actively have to keep yourself from jerking your eyes away from the screen.
All of the above may sound like a damnation of this film, but the opposite could not be any more true. The nonsense, the strangeness, and the chaotic energy coalesce into an undeniably thrilling experience. Everything operates on such a fever pitch of complete revelry, which is simultaneously infectious and alarming. Every performance is 100% committed to the dark bit, from the surreal nakedness of Idris Elba’s Macavity, to Rebel Wilson’s skin-shedding Jennyanydots (an honestly horrific moment), to Ian McKellen’s Gus the Theater Cat and the delivery of the most life-changing “meow meow meow” you have ever heard.
King shit
Somewhere between the first few songs, I felt my brain begin to thrum perfectly with the pandemonium I was experiencing, and I was all-in from then on. All the absurd decisions came together to form something greater than the sum of their parts, and I found myself genuinely LOVING this terrible thing. It unapologetically one-ups itself at every single turn, swerving so carelessly between humor, horniness, and body horror that I found it impossible to be bored. I genuinely could not wait to see what each new set piece and performance would bring to the table. I wanted the movie to pulverize everything in its path so that it could be reborn, and it obliged with relentless, manic aggression. By the end, I knew that there was life before Cats and life after Cats, and I was overjoyed to be present at the epicenter.
Cats are (NOT) Dogs
I’m not alone in this either, as there are theatres specifically tailoring “rowdy” screenings of the movie in order to encourage audiences to fully bask in the madness. This movie was important for me because it helped me more clearly define what I thought “good” and “bad” meant with regard to films. When I think of other “bad” films, they usually evoke feelings of boredom or problematic messaging, so how do I measure a movie that is never boring and practically has no message? For all its detached weirdness and eccentricities, I was enthralled by it, and though it may not be technically perfect in any sense, I had more fun watching this movie than I think I’ve ever had at a theater. Every made-up word, every uncanny-valley-ass face I witnessed – they’re all burned into my memory forever, and can that not be its own form of greatness?