Film

“The Most Bewildering Cinematic Experience I Have Ever Had”: The First ‘Cats’ Reactions Are In

'Cats' is going to melt your brain.

by Joseph Earp  18 December 2019
'Cats' first reactions

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From the moment that the very first Cats trailer entered our lives, it was clear that nothing was ever to be the same again.

Based on the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of the same name, Tom Hooper’s Cats sees a bunch of digital felines sing songs in a desperate attempt to get into cat heaven. At least, that’s ostensibly what it’s about. In truth, no mere words can truly replicate the shock and awe of seeing Taylor Swift as a horny ginger stray with human nipples and a human nose.

So, to that end, first reactions to the film have been a mess of face-melting horror and genuine, begrudging astonishment.

Let’s dive in.

It’s Very, Very Weird

Everybody knew that Cats was going to be weird. The musical is weird. Adapting the musical for the screen and turning all of the cats into digital Eldritch horrors is weird. Hiring James Corden is weird.

But, as it turns out, the finished project is even stranger than anyone could have imagined.

Celebrity and digital personality Alan Henry, who caught the film at its world premiere, has called it “the strangest, most bewildering” cinematic experience of their entire life, noting that they were completely unprepared for how disarming it ended up being.

Meanwhile, comedian Natalie Walker compared it to the uniquely horrifying boat trip from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which is both exciting and very worrying.

Just as off-puttingly, the film is apparently extremely horny.

So uh, yeah. Prepare yourself accordingly.

The Music Is Great

Needless to say, because this is a musical, whether Cats lives or dies depends a lot on its songs. And, according to at least one early reaction, the tunes knock it out of the park.

Not only are all the old hits from the musical preserved intact, but director Tom Hooper has also commissioned himself a brand new tune. Titled ‘Beautiful Ghosts’, it’s a bookend to ‘Memory’, one of the most famous songs from the musical, and a work of some considerable art.

That’s at least according to Ramin Setoodeh, who is all in for the track.

Then There’s Ben Mekler

This wouldn’t be a round-up article without a Tweet from Ben Mekler, the Twitter comedian who slides hilarious and bizarre fake plot points into his ‘early reactions’ to see how many publications take them for real. A lot have done so this time around, including such lauded sites as People and The Independent.

Which is great, because it’s one of his funniest yet.

Let’s hope Cats itself measures up against Mekler’s deeply bizarre standard.