Susan Granger’s review of “Cats” (Universal Pictures)
Loss estimates on Tom Hooper’s creepy big-screen, live-action adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s popular musical now range from $71 to $100 million.
Populated by CGI humanoid felines, the fanciful concept is based on T.S. Eliot’s 1939 poetry collection “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”
After Eliot’s widow Valerie gave Webber permission to use the material, she found an unpublished poem about Grizabella and a gathering of “Jellicle Cats” that culminated with a balloon trip to the Heaviside Layer.
The script by Hooper and Lee Hall involves a framing story in which a naïve kitten, Victoria (British ballerina Francesca Hayward), is abandoned in London’s West End Theater district alley and is eventually accepted into the Jellicle clan.
There’s gluttonous Bustopher Jones (James Corden), Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson) dancing with cockroaches, magical Mr. Mistoffelees (Laurie Davidson), and Gus the aging Theater Cat (Ian McKellen). Clad in skintight outfits covered with digital fur with a CG tail and twitching CG ears, it’s bizarre as each sings a song about himself/herself.
The villain is predatory Macavity (Idris Elba), the monster of depravity, arising the ire of regal Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench), who bears an alarming resemblance to Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz.”
“Tonight is a magical night where I choose the cat that deserves a new life,” she says, explaining the upcoming Jellicle Ball. “I judge a cat by its soul.”
Predictably, the musical highlight is “Memory,” sung by bedraggled, formerly glamorous prosti-kitty Grizabella (Jennifer Hudson), now considered a social pariah.
The musical numbers are not prerecorded. Instead, they’re sung “au naturel” as each scene was being filmed. Unfortunately, these crooning actors – with the obvious exception of Hudson, Taylor Swift as Bombalurina and Jason Derulo as Rum Tum Tugger – are not trained singers, and it shows.
The new song “Beautiful Ghosts,” co-written by Lloyd Webber and Taylor Swift, is performed by Swift over the end credits.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Cats” claws in with an inscrutable, ignominious 1, a cat-astrophe!
