by Hailey Sepulvado ’22

Those lucky enough to have never seen the total fail that was “Cats” don’t have much to say, but those who did have to sit through the 151-minute atrocity has a few words about it.

“Cats,” a movie remake of the “Cats” broadway musical, was expected to be a huge film, with lots of excited fans. With a star-studded cast including James Corden, Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, Rebel Wilson, Idris Elba and Jennifer Hudson, you would think this movie would be a smash hit, but it was nothing more than an embarrassment. Rolling Stone may have said it best, “Talent is misused all through the film.” In fact, the film was such an embarrassment some of the stars are making fun of it themselves. Corden and Wilson presented the award for best special effects at the 2020 Oscars dressed as their characters from the movies. With them both being comedians you can expect some funny comments, and they proceeded to say, “As cast members from the motion picture ‘Cats’, nobody understands good special effects better than us.” This follows a criticism of the CGI effects on the actors’ bodies and costumes. It is no surprise that the movie did not earn any Oscar nominations.

Another disappointment of the movie was the revenue earned off of box offices, in proportion to the amount of money it took to make the film. The budget for the movie was $95 million dollars, but only brought in $40 million which projects “Cats” to lose $70-$100 million dollars. With the movie only bringing in $6.2 million dollars in the first week in theatres it was definitely a slow start and didn’t get much better.

Let’s just say people were not the nicest when sharing their opinions about the movie, with one Twitter user saying, “This is the best way to toture someone.” This pretty much sums up the public’s view of the movie but professional reviews were not much kinder. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie 20% and the IMDb score was a mere 2.8/10. Rolling Stone added to the vicious reviews by saying the movie was, “Straight out of the litter box”, and a “…hellish fiasco of a film version.” With all these reviews, it is safe to say the movie was definitely not the biggest hit amongst the general public.