Cats

Cats is (not only) for me one of the most controversial films of the last few years. On the one hand, it oozes Oscar ambitions and craftsmanship, on the other, the visual concept is quite bizarre, at times (exaggerating bit) obscene to the point of perversion. I haven’t seen the musical, nor did I know the story, so I went into the film with a clean slate. In fact, the premise itself is a very bizarre and wild affair, but one that will probably get lost in the theatre, where the expressiveness is more on point. What I liked best were the musical scenes with Jennifer Hudson, the "train song" and the scenes with Rebel Wilson (when she wasn't eating cockroaches with human faces). The biggest problems are the pervasive artificiality of the characters, the unnaturalness of their movements and a certain amount of perversity in their actions. One minute you think this is a pretty fine musical, only to say what the f*ck a scene later. I honestly expected Cats (based on the trailers and reviews) to be a lot worse, and it's a shame that Tom Hooper chose this particular material. (11.01.2020)

This is a project that should never have seen the light of day. If someone had set fire to the editing room with all the recorded material, everyone would be more than happy. The story of well-known Broadway musical (if you can call it a story at all) has a structure that can't be easily adapted for the big screen, so Tom Hooper filmed a plotless and unfocused exhibition of chaotic dance choreography, terrible acting performances and excessively overused CGI. Cats is a horrible spectacle that doesn’t understand even the very basics of the movie medium. (28.04.2020)

Excellent! From the very first second it’s an immersive experience that goes beyond the senses, the camera begins with an epic journey through Eurasia to underline the continent's historical cultural dominance, and then carefully captures space, enhanced by captivating orchestral music that disrupts a gradually escalating message, whose empirical and purely practical value extends to the surrounding universe. The narration then finds a stable surface and, with the goosebump-inducing sounds of trombones, violins and drums from various cultures, it reaches a climax, astounding the viewer with how fast it all went and how flawlessly… Cats is an awful waste of time so I rather analysed the opening logo of Universal Studios, which kicks the film’s ass. That said, I won’t refrain from a couple of words addressed at the kittens. I appreciate and believe that a lot of work went into this, and that the lightning and staging of some of the scenes are very good, but the main problem I had – already after a few minutes – was that someone threw a hundred million dollars on such uninteresting and annoying bullshit, and they expected fanfares! And they have the viewer watch a human hand caressing a cat’s rump and listen to songs, the melodies of which are forgotten while they’re still being sung. The only good thing is the cute female lead, whom I would love to take to a hotel room, knowing that we will both purr (I’m not saying that you can see something nice in that fur, the film is child friendly, after all, though it shouldn’t be because it can stunt their sexual potency, the faith in a healthy adolescence and the cultural taste). (26.03.2020)