CATS the movie, 4 things that would have saved it
Hey, so, I went to see Cats! in theaters this weekend and I thought I would get back into doing my movie reviews.
We will start first with the trailer for the movie. So that you have an idea of what I am about to review if you haven't seen anything about it yet. Though with the type of reception it got, I doubt you haven't seen this.
So, First and Foremost, a lot of this movie could have been saved with just a short bit of text at the beginning of the movie (and the trailer). They should have started the movie with,
That text right there, would help to explain why so much of the movie seems a bit odd. If you go into it without that knowledge, a lot of the movie is just confusing and meandering and just plain makes no sense. Thankfully I saw the movie with someone who was a fan of the Broadway show and was able to explain that to me. She got a lot of questions like, "Wait, what is a Jellicle cat?" and "What do they have against Grizzabella?" and "What the hell is with Macavity?"
She was able to answer my questions as a fan, but if that text had appeared, I would have at least gone into it knowing that it was based on poetry, and I might have been a bit less confused.
Second Thing that would have fixed it, get rid of the CGI. Go back and watch the trailer again, everything about the characters is CGI. They filmed the movie wearing green screen body suits at all times. It should have been an amazing spectacle to behold, but instead it just looked creepy. It looked to me like the director have a fever dream after watching the musical and decided to make that into a movie.
What they should have done was keep the sets, but dressed the cast up the same way the Broadway show did. Would have made it all much more believable, and would have avoided the biggest CGI fault they had. If they had stuck with it being mostly set based, and had them in cat suits instead.
Which brings me to the Third Thing, if you have to keep the CGI, focus more on the sets and their faces, and less on the their whiskers, ears, and tail movement. Often, the actors feet don't actually appear to be touching the ground during the Jellicle Ball. They also often had no shadow on the item they were on, and and their faces appeared to warp oddly as they are talking or singing.
Then they kept changing just how small the cats were in comparison to the world around them. They go from appearing to be normal-ish size cats, to small cats, to at one point small enough they are dancing on top of a single railroad rail. I get it that in the beginning song they talk about Jellicle cats being small cats, the idea that they are all runts or malnourished or what have you. But there really isn't a common theme when it comes to just how big they actually are.
And the Fourth Thing, is the added dialogue scenes that they put in, as what seemed to be an attempt to fill in space and add some humor, they didn't belong. There was absolutely no need for any of the added scenes or dialogue. The only added thing that I did enjoy was the added song for Victoria. That was a good song and fit well, everything else though was rough to watch and rougher to hear. There were a few funny-ish parts, but over all, they were unneeded. Cats The Musical is the fourth longest running musical of all time, and has grossed over $3BILLION. There was no need to change the script in any way, for any reason. But yet again it's movie studios believing they know what the audiance wants and making unneeded changes to something just because they can.
So there, my four things
1) Text at the begginging to set it up better
2) Remove the CGI
3) Fix the CGI if you wont remove it
4) remove the dialogue
If I had to add one more, the Fifth Thing would be to recast Jason Deroulo. He was a horrible Rum Tom Tugger.
That's my thoughts on it,
but hey,
That could just be the Bloodwine Talking,
Byron
We will start first with the trailer for the movie. So that you have an idea of what I am about to review if you haven't seen anything about it yet. Though with the type of reception it got, I doubt you haven't seen this.
So, First and Foremost, a lot of this movie could have been saved with just a short bit of text at the beginning of the movie (and the trailer). They should have started the movie with,
Cats The Musical
(fades to)
Created by
Andrew Loyd Weber
(fades to)
from the poetry of
T.S. Elliot
(fades to)
in his collection
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
That text right there, would help to explain why so much of the movie seems a bit odd. If you go into it without that knowledge, a lot of the movie is just confusing and meandering and just plain makes no sense. Thankfully I saw the movie with someone who was a fan of the Broadway show and was able to explain that to me. She got a lot of questions like, "Wait, what is a Jellicle cat?" and "What do they have against Grizzabella?" and "What the hell is with Macavity?"
She was able to answer my questions as a fan, but if that text had appeared, I would have at least gone into it knowing that it was based on poetry, and I might have been a bit less confused.
Second Thing that would have fixed it, get rid of the CGI. Go back and watch the trailer again, everything about the characters is CGI. They filmed the movie wearing green screen body suits at all times. It should have been an amazing spectacle to behold, but instead it just looked creepy. It looked to me like the director have a fever dream after watching the musical and decided to make that into a movie.
What they should have done was keep the sets, but dressed the cast up the same way the Broadway show did. Would have made it all much more believable, and would have avoided the biggest CGI fault they had. If they had stuck with it being mostly set based, and had them in cat suits instead.
Which brings me to the Third Thing, if you have to keep the CGI, focus more on the sets and their faces, and less on the their whiskers, ears, and tail movement. Often, the actors feet don't actually appear to be touching the ground during the Jellicle Ball. They also often had no shadow on the item they were on, and and their faces appeared to warp oddly as they are talking or singing.
Then they kept changing just how small the cats were in comparison to the world around them. They go from appearing to be normal-ish size cats, to small cats, to at one point small enough they are dancing on top of a single railroad rail. I get it that in the beginning song they talk about Jellicle cats being small cats, the idea that they are all runts or malnourished or what have you. But there really isn't a common theme when it comes to just how big they actually are.
And the Fourth Thing, is the added dialogue scenes that they put in, as what seemed to be an attempt to fill in space and add some humor, they didn't belong. There was absolutely no need for any of the added scenes or dialogue. The only added thing that I did enjoy was the added song for Victoria. That was a good song and fit well, everything else though was rough to watch and rougher to hear. There were a few funny-ish parts, but over all, they were unneeded. Cats The Musical is the fourth longest running musical of all time, and has grossed over $3BILLION. There was no need to change the script in any way, for any reason. But yet again it's movie studios believing they know what the audiance wants and making unneeded changes to something just because they can.
So there, my four things
1) Text at the begginging to set it up better
2) Remove the CGI
3) Fix the CGI if you wont remove it
4) remove the dialogue
If I had to add one more, the Fifth Thing would be to recast Jason Deroulo. He was a horrible Rum Tom Tugger.
That's my thoughts on it,
but hey,
That could just be the Bloodwine Talking,
Byron
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