I'm back from my Twitter hiatus to tell you that I basically liked the Cats movie.
It wasn't the show, but we have a filmed version of the show. (We should have filmed versions of any stage show that is a cultural phenomenon.) It was an adaptation for a different medium.
It wasn't the show, but we have a filmed version of the show. (We should have filmed versions of any stage show that is a cultural phenomenon.) It was an adaptation for a different medium.
Also, Rebel Wilson's character is going to give a handful of people some very specific kink awakenings.
When you interpret characters in new ways you're not going to please all fans of the standard interpretation, but I'm increasingly a fan of the model of characters as toys in a toybox and I want to see how different people play with them.
Andrew Lloyd Webber was already adding his own characterizations to T.S. Eliot's fanciful extrapolations from cat personalities/behaviors when he made "the original" and each cast/production has had their own glosses as well.
I feel like the movie made Mr. Mistoffelees the male romantic lead because 1) he's the closest thing the stage show has to a hero in that he undoes what the villain does and 2) some prominent productions chose him as Victoria's dancing partner purely for the visual contrast...
...but the fact that Victoria's partner in her major scene of characterization in the stage production is not really set, there's no reason it has to be one cat or another, just emphasizes how much these characters are ciphers for whoever is playing with them.
If you didn't like it because eerie/bad/unfinished CGI, or for any other reason, that's fine. If it wasn't your saucer of milk, okay. I'm not here to argue which version is better or that Cats is objectively good (though, separately, cats are objectively good).
The stage show has the barest tissue-paper thin excuse of plot to justify a dreamlike phantasmagoria of cats singing nonsense poems by T.S. Eliot until the saddest one of them is given permission to die. The movie tries to extrapolate a more traditional story from this.
They could have left it alone, or they could have gone farther in another direction and had Dr. Strangefflees fighting The Macavity superhero style, or whatever. It would have been a different movie then.
The questions I care about are:
1. How well did they succeed at what they were trying to do? Pretty well.
2. Was it entertaining? Certainly.
3. Was there vore? Yes.
1. How well did they succeed at what they were trying to do? Pretty well.
2. Was it entertaining? Certainly.
3. Was there vore? Yes.
