“CATS! The Movie” Will Dig Its Claws Into Your Soul

Who doesn’t love cats? What cold, dead monster has the heart to look at a little ball of fluff sitting perfectly in a teacup and say, “Disgusting. I hate it”? You guessed it! Thespians. If the makeup in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s critically acclaimed “Cats” wasn’t already a war crime in and of itself, then let me present to you the living embodiment of sin: “CATS! The Movie” (2019).

It's truly such a shame to see anyone fall so far. For the sake of all these A-list Hollywood stars, I hope that they fired their agents for getting them into this glorified fever dream. It's such a shame to see every suburban mom’s feminist icon, Taylor Swift, frolicking around looking like my sleep paralysis demon. “CATS!” is yet another poor, CGI-filled attempt by Hollywood to present what—despite its flaws—is ultimately a classic. At least on Broadway, the actors had to do their own makeup, which can excuse its hideousness in part. This is just a collection of incels circled around their mom’s computer chanting “Taylor Swift cat boobies.”

I will now present my experience watching the film exactly as I remember it.

I enter the theater and already something feels wrong. No, it's not the furries in the back row, yipping excitedly. It's not the poor, ignorantly hopeful Broadway nerd sitting in the best seat in the house. The vibes indicate that I have just walked into a deathtrap of cosmic proportions. I sit down and feel my soul being ripped from my body, through the rat’s nest on the floor, down to Hell.

I honestly don’t know what gave me the impression that the film would at least have a somewhat normal beginning. Instead, I am bombarded by what appears to be a malformed James Corden doing his absolute best to work a fur coat over his cat body. Why is he wearing a coat? Is it made of cat fur? What did he do to procure such an item? (Hint: it’s probably cannibalism). This is never addressed. Every single actor looks as if they have died, and the movie is simply CGI artists animating their bodies, except they seem to have forgotten how bodies work. Dame Judi Dench herself stares me in the eyes, and I can see she is on the brink of tears (I would be as well). The queen will revoke her knighthood; she is sure. This all occurs in the first 15 minutes of the film.

It takes just 20 more minutes—a grand total of 35 minutes into the movie—for the Broadway nerd to break. I turn to watch as he runs out of the theater crying, eyes burning, and ears bleeding, unable to take the sins of his craft any longer. I return my focus to the screen, feeling little remorse. It is people like him who birthed this nightmare and shoved it down our throats, and it is people like him who shall suffer for it.

A voice in the back of my head tells me I should run while I can. No Spectator article is worth this, and I am not even getting paid. I stand and turn to leave. There is a whoosh behind me, and I see the flick of a tail in the corner of my eye. I nod in passing to the furries, but they take no notice. I reach for the door when I am stopped. It is Jason Derulo. He commands me to stop with some sultry dance moves. I turn back to the screen to watch Idris Elba emerge, somehow coming to life from the film. I thought he was horrific on screen, but in person, it is so, so much worse. He glances at me with his inhuman, broken eyes and sheds his coat. His body is animated completely smooth, and I try to scream as he licks himself.

When he is finished, Elba turns to the furries, who have gathered at his feet. Like some ancient deity lost long ago to the ghosts of time, he snaps his fingers, and the furries disappear. They have become one with “CATS!” I look to Derulo, but he only continues to dance more fervently. My head is snapped back to Elba by a higher power. His eyes bore into the darkest crevices of my soul. He speaks: “The day of reckoning has arrived / The ancient sins shall be revived / Your soul, now broken, a feline slave / A weight for all time, taken long past the grave.”

He returns to his realm, and suddenly Derulo is inexplicably holding a gun to my head as I am forced to watch Rebel Wilson consume a population of cockroaches, making each one squelch and scream as she bites down on them. These cockroaches are also human. They have six arms. I am sobbing as I try to convince them to let me go, but my voice fails me.

The film ends, and the theater goes black. Derulo has disappeared, but I know he will be back. I grab my things and run. I keep running, long after I have left the theater, for I know that every second I am not running, they will only get closer, and only God knows what will happen when they catch up.

Disclaimer: I have not seen the movie “CATS!”; this is all a fabrication based on what I have heard online.