‘Cats’: Film Review: Nine may not be enough lives for some of the stars to live down their involvement in this poorly conceived and executed adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit musical.

Variety ^ | December 18, 2019 | Peter DeBurge

[C19fan]

Back in the summer of 2015, the co-directors of Disney’s “Zootopia” went rogue, disregarding the advice of their corporate colleagues and appearing onstage at the Annecy animation festival disguised as the talking-animal cartoon’s fur-covered lead characters, an anthropomorphic rabbit and her foxy best friend. The audience ate it up, but behind the scenes, the Disney suits were sweating. For decades, the family entertainment company had been dealing with a very specific group of enthusiasts, identified as “furries,” who get off on dressing up in full-body animal costumes, drawing inspiration wherever they can find it. By now, Disney lawyers know how to deal with that crowd, but other studios have to learn the hard way.

I mention this because it’s just one of dozens of things the folks at Universal seem not to have taken into consideration before making a movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running musical “Cats” — another being the need to define, for generations uninitiated, the meaning of “Jellicle,” a nonsense word repeated nearly six dozen times in the opening number alone. Fans of the original show may embrace it; so too will furries, I’d wager. But it’s not enough to take a blockbuster Broadway phenomenon with one iconic earworm — Lloyd Webber’s unforgettable “Memory” — and a loose plot about a community of street cats competing for a chance to be reborn, and trust it to work on the big screen.

[Seruzawa]

Michael Bay?

[minnesota_bound]

Taylor Swift is in the movie. She owns 3 cats.... so far.

[Rinnwald]

Michael Bay?

Don't tempt me.

[EdnaMode]

It’s at 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. Bet it will flop at the box office.

[gymbeau]

From the director who ruined Les Miserables.

[Captain Peter Blood]

Well “Cats” Bombed Big Time at the BO, gross on Friday at 3800 screens a whopping $2.2 Million. It’s huge failure and poor Taylor Swift goes down in Inglorious Flames, couldnot happen to more deserving person.