'Cats' drags in distracting digital effects for big-screen musical
<h3 class="briefHead">"Cats" - ★ ½</h3>
OK, let's determine what part of Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical movie "Cats" ranks as the creepiest.
When cheerfully singing Jellicle cats chew on hapless dancing insects during what looks like a Busby Berkeley-directed Raid commercial?
When pussycat Jennyanydots (Rebel Wilson) does a Jellicle version of Sharon Stone's underwear-challenged flash from "Basic Instinct?"
Or perhaps the notion that, um, parts of Rum Tum Tugger (Jason Derulo) had to be digitally erased from his skintight costume to keep a PG rating.
So far, I have seen two stage productions of "Cats," one a big-budget national tour, the other a modestly budgeted regional Equity theater in Long Island.
I didn't love either one, but liked both better than Tom Hooper's $95 million show that suffocates its characters and songs under an avalanche of distracting digital effects and caffeinated editing.
Hooper apparently forgot why he earned a Best Direction Academy Award for "The King's Speech" - by creating characters we can relate to and empathize with.
When a kitty named Victoria (charismatic, but emotionally opaque Royal Ballet dancer Francesca Hayward) gets dumped in a British back-alley trash pile, the Jellicles rescue her and make her a member of the litter.
We don't know anything about Victoria and never do, because "Cats" immediately leaps into "A Chorus Line With Fur," an ensemble cast breaking into self-centered songs that do not campaign for our affections.
For the first time in the musical's history, the sagely character of Old Deuteronomy isn't a Dude-ronomy at all, but a female feline played by Dame Judi Dench.
She seems to be in charge of the Jellicles. (Being a former M in the James Bond films grants her great credibility.)
Old Deuter explains that every year she has the power to make one lucky cat a "Jellicle choice" who will be reborn into a new cat life.
The villainous Macavity (Idris Elba with glowing green contacts) wants her to pick him, but has a strange way of currying her favor.
He threatens the other cats. Then he kidnaps several of them by magically teleporting them to a boat on the Thames.
Lloyd Webber's simple story comes from T.S. Eliot's 1939 poetry book "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," in turn based on his 1933 poem "Five-Finger Exercises" that introduced the Jellicles.
Pop singer Taylor Swift makes a swift and short-lived appearance as Bombalurina. She also sings an original song co-written with Lloyd Webber, "Beautiful Ghosts," over the closing credits. (Oscar voters Monday snubbed it as one of the 15 contenders in the original song category.)
Chicago's own Jennifer Hudson twice sings the show's signature ballad "Memory" as Grizabella, who begins the song at DEF-CON 4 emotional levels, thereby leaving no place for the tune to build.
James Cordon supplies slapstick shtick as rotund Bustopher Jones. Ray Winstone makes Growltiger a nasty enforcer for Macavity.
As Gus the Theatre Cat, the great Ian McKellen purrs with galvanizing authority, making you forget the weird cat-ear twitches and inadvertently comical cat tails created by overzealous digital artists.
McKellen's the cat's meow in a film employing even lamer catty remarks like "Cat got your tongue?" and "Look what the cat dragged in."
Catcalls fully deserved.
Starring: Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Jason Derulo, Jennifer Hudson, Idris Elba, Francesca Hayward, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson
Directed by: Tom Hooper
Other: A Universal Pictures release. Rated PG. 110 minutes