Universal Pictures has released a new
Cats trailer and, well, I'm sure based on the reaction to the first trailer you can guess how things went down with this one. What's crazy to me is, that despite remembering very vividly having a VHS tape of the stage production and very vividly recalling watching certain pieces of it, I have no idea what the Broadway musical is about much less whatever Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper (
The King’s Speech) and his collaboration with Lee Hall (
Billy Elliot) on the screenplay might amount to. Whatever it might be, bad or good come the end of the day, an ambitious take on the long-running production seems to be what we're in for at the very least; and if there's genuine emotion and clear desire to make something real out of what is clearly a silly premise-I can get down with that. The ultimate thing is, despite the online backlash over the look of the titular characters (instead of using makeup to make the actors look like cats, Hooper and co. utilized new performance-capture technology to create entirely CG felines), I don't personally find it
that distracting. I mean, c'mon-the now highest grossing movie of all time features a talking raccoon and a giant purple hero eater as its antagonist. Like that film, Hooper's
Cats boasts a star-studded ensemble led by Jennifer Hudson, James Corden, and Taylor Swift and it is with musically inclined names such as these combined with the fact Hooper has more than a little experience in the musical genre (he also directed the Hugh Jackman/Russell Crowe
Les Miserables) that one is led to believe there might be some genuinely cool ideas and effortlessly strong executions within this puzzle of a premise. And say what you will, but the production design here is kind of jaw-dropping while the clips of the musical performances we see look to be really well done, so why all the fuss? Is it simply because it's CGI cats doing these things? Sure, I get it, but if that's the only case against it yet the Broadway musical has somehow managed to be a long-running hit I have to imagine there is an audience out there who isn't as bothered by as much as the community on the internet who is ready to damn this thing to hell before it even arrives seems to be. I wouldn't say I'm necessarily excited to see
Cats, but I'm certainly intrigued and not going to not see it based purely on the fact the character designs make me feel uncomfortable. I tend to appreciate Hooper's aesthetics and "on-the-ground" mentality meshed with the larger than life prowess of his visuals and I can only think that will be ratcheted up to eleven on this one.
Cats also stars Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Ian McKellen, Rebel Wilson, Francesca Hayward and opens in theaters on December 20th, 2019.
