Everything that’s wrong with the trailer for ‘Cats’

Like with the first teasers for “Aladdin” the release of the trailer for the upcoming movie musical “Cats” has been roundly panned by outraged viewers on the internet. Unlike with “Aladdin”, it’s not just the one character that is the target for the potential audience’s ire, as scorn has been heaped upon almost every aspect of the production. We take a look at exactly why “Cats” will likely be the worst thing humanity has done since global warming.

The Source Material

One can feel nothing but sadness for TS Eliot whose “Old Possum’s book of practical cats” is supposed to be the inspiration for this musical. I have little doubt that despite the fact he was probably high on opium when he wrote it, TS would be desperately saddened by what he inspired. By far Andrew Lloyd Webber’s weakest piece of work, the musical itself is something whose fame is in total contrast to its quality.

Essentially the plot, such that it is, is simply a series of cats stepping up to introduce themselves through song. Nothing more.  Throughout the trailer, the editor has desperately attempted to make it look as though there is some semblance of a story to tell, but the truth is that there are phone books with more complex plots. The 80s was a decade in which the world made numerous mistakes from shoulder pads in jackets to mullets and the TV show ALF, but probably the worst was allowing 1981’s, “Cats” to become famous.

James Cordon

The highest billed actor in the movie is James Cordon who is essentially a fan of musicals with a talk show. On his show, he regularly invites stars of theatre to sing in competition with him, and every week he is shamed by them, but he doesn’t seem to know it. His being touted as the lead in this movie version of a real musical says all you need to know about how much time and effort the producers took to cast the thing.

The Nightmarish CGI

Most of the online outrage centres on the CGI of the actors who are morphed into half-human, half-cat demonic figures. No one wants to see legendary actors like Ian McKellan and Judi Dench morphed into the ruined Ecce Homo version of a real cat. The film is essentially full of the things you were afraid lived under your bed as a child and James Cordon, in particular, looks like someone watched Mike Myers as the Cat in the hat and was blown away by the genius of it.

Perhaps the most bizarre part is that the director, or someone else who is also suffering from the effects of massive opiate withdrawal, made the decision to give the cats human breasts. Was this an attempt to make these ghoulish figures sexy? We can never know for sure.

The overall effect is positively nightmarish as these ghastly apparitions writhe around sets that are ironically built way too large.

Has no one who worked on the whole movie ever seen a cat? How is it possible to take a human-sized person in a catsuit and make them into cats that are smaller than a butter knife?

Here are the best tweets about the trailer:

TELL ME WHY CAT JUDI DENCH LOOKS LIKE ITS BEEN EDITED THE SAME WAY AS THE SUN FROM THE TELETUBBIES pic.twitter.com/VcUl4zUDcP

— abbie (@biIlshaders) July 18, 2019

Can’t wait pic.twitter.com/7AKC17FTPn

— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) July 18, 2019

The new #CatsMovie looks wild https://t.co/DV9np6BVa6

— Joe ✨ (@balf4our) July 18, 2019

You can watch the whole trailer here, but be warned the only thing you will want to do after seeing it, is unsee it.

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