From the moment that we saw the first trailer, Cats seemed to become one of the most talked about movies of the year. The film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical was not exactly what you'd call "highly anticipated" but from the moment we all saw the CGI cat-human hybrid creatures that escaped from the Island of Dr. Moreau, it seems everybody became fascinated by it all.
While general audiences will have their chance to check out Cats for themselves starting tonight, reviews have landed, and while most of them are not kind, they are largely hilarious. Critics have found a number of ways to attempt to describe just what audiences have in store for themselves when Cats arrives. CinemaBlend's own Corey Chichizola reviewed Cats for us, and he used the musical's most famous song, as a way to wish he hadn't been subjected to the movie.
Cats Review: This Memory Might Be Better Off Forgotten
But Corey was far from the only one that couldn't believe what he saw with Cats. In fact, while most reviews certainly say that Cats is a movie to be avoided, there are a number of them that, while still negative, almost suggest checking it out, if only so that you might witness the utter insanity within. Mashable's Angie Han may have said it best...
CatsMovie broke me, and I've never been happier:
Watching Cats must be what a mass hallucination feels like. Everybody in the room is experiencing the same thing. It's a communal experience, possibly like being of prisoner of war. You're all in the theater together, nobody can get out, and you just pray that when it's over everybody will still be ok.
It also needs to be said, that you're just not prepared for just how sexy Cats tries to be. Even though all the CGI cats have been mostly neutered, there's still this general feeling that at any moment the PG-13 movie is going to go someplace dark and horrible, as one critic Yolanda Machado pointed out.
And yes, all the CATS are horny AF but neutered and there's a prostitute cat, which my friend wonders why a cat needs to prostitute themselves for money? milk? What is the CATS currency? AND WHY DO SOME WEAR FUR COATS OVER THEIR FUR?
In the end, there's simply no better way to describe the Cats experience than "bizarre." To be sure, much of the insanity comes from the original musical, which doesn't really have a plot to speak of. It really is just a parade of singing cats, which is just as insane as that sounds, which is what Collider came away with.
I can't stop thinking about how #CatsMovie is just different cats introducing themselves through song but also EVERY SONG is just "hi I'm the asshole cat"
I can't in good conscience recommend that you see Cats, but at the same time, you sort of need to see it to understand what it really is. If you're willing to make the jellicle choice and actually subject yourself to Cats, it opens in theaters tonight.
