Review of Cats (1998) by Terry C — 09 Sep 2009

With all the furor over this thing over the years, I expected it to at least be okay. I enjoyed Eliot's original poems from Old Possum's Book, the ones I read at least. But not only is the production and filming pretty terrible, the play itself is pointless, weird, boring and ridiculous! And this is coming from a guy who has found worth and value in a good number of pointless, weird, boring, ridiculous movies and plays.

Half the time I couldn't even understand what the actors were saying or singing about because the sound was that terrible, and as is typical for filmed versions of plays the stage/audience chemistry was missing. There didn't seem to be any semblance of a story, just an endless parade of cat characters being introduced. The music and lyrics weren't that great. By the time I turned it off, about 30 minutes into it, I was ready to smack the next person who used the word "Jellicle", since it got said about twelve times in every song but was never well explained, leaving it meaningless and annoying.

I suppose extreme cat fanatics might like this DVD just because it's about cats... thought my six-year-old daughter, who LOVES cats and anything cat-related, thought it was just "okay".