CATS! AAAAAHHHHHH!

I just saw the new CATS! movie.

The reviews on this one are pretty harsh.

But, truthfully, I've seen much worse.

Let me explain.

I'm a bit of a connoisseur of bad movies, and I'd like to think

I can spot gimmicks and bad design when I see it.

This isn't among the worst of the bad movies, in my opinion.

I've read the poems this show is based on, I've seen the

show, and four years ago I even played the show in the

orchestra pit for a local production. It's safe to

say I am familiar with the material.

This movie has some problems with the CGI cats.

They're okay, but kind of distracting at the same time.

They don't move quite as lifelike as they're needed to.

And in one scene a collar is clearly floating over the fur neck

of one of the cats.

Several times, their dancing paws seem to glide over the street

in an unnatural way. 

Rebel Wilson, who I don't mind so much in other stuff

she's in, is horribly mis-cast as Jennyanydots. I realize she's

an over the top sort of character actor, but some of her

personality quirks take away from the cat character

in a distracting way. 

Okay, the music.

Webber's score shines through, particularly the ending,

after Grizabella's ascent into the Heavyside Layer.

But I may be biased, as it's my favorite piece of music from the show.

There is a new song, by Taylor Swift (Beautiful Ghosts) that, 

while not a bad song, just screams to the audience that it

was not part of the original score. It just doesn't fit

the musical landscape like it should. The song

kiiiiiiinda helps to drive the plot, but it could be taken

out entirely, and nothing would be missed.

The cinematography was good though, if you take out the
shaky cam bits. (No need for that, for cats' sake)
I like the railroad cat scene, and the detail to making the
cats to cat-scale within the sets was a nice touch.
Yeah, they were people in weird CGI cat costumes, but
at least they weren't human-sized weird CGI cat costumed people.
That would have been awkward.

And that's what I think about CATS! (2019)

Meow.