Cats (2019)

Cats (2019) is a big, strange swing of a movie-musical—less a traditional story than a dreamlike parade of character, song, and dance that commits so fully to its own whimsical logic you may find yourself oddly swept along. Tom Hooper stages the Jellicle Ball like an eccentric midnight revue, giving each performer a spotlight to sell you on a personality through movement, melody, and sheer theatrical nerve, with the cast leaning in hard enough to make the spectacle feel alive even when it’s baffling. If you’re on the fence, go for the sensations: the choreography’s athletic flair, the sing-along familiarity of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s tunes, and the undeniable showstopper power of “Memory” when it arrives. It’s not for everyone—its uncanny, stylized look can be a hurdle—but if you’re open to something unapologetically weird, it can be a surprisingly fun, one-of-a-kind night at the movies.

Cats (2019) is clearly trying to translate the stage musical’s loose, revue-style charm into a big-screen fantasy with spectacle, star power, and wall-to-wall songs. The problem is the film’s central visual concept: the CGI “human-cat” designs and constantly shifting scale can feel distractingly uncanny, making it hard to relax into the world or connect emotionally. The story is intentionally thin, but here it plays more like a string of introductions than a satisfying narrative, and the tone swings between sincere, goofy, and oddly sensual in a way that can be exhausting rather than enchanting. If you love the musical and mainly want the numbers (with a few strong vocal moments and committed performances), you might be able to ride the chaos; if you need coherent storytelling or visuals that don’t fight your brain, this is probably not your night.