Anna Daniels
Perhaps odd visual effects displayed in trailers can be forgotten — or even forgiven if the final release redeems itself. Pre-launch footage doesn’t represent a finished product, and trailers can end up poorly cut in a way that damages the full storytelling context that will feel appropriately rich in the complete film. Unfortunately, it was all but impossible for Cats to make up for its prior missteps when the press preview for the film went as poorly as it did. Reviews for Cats that came out after Universal lifted the embargo weren’t just disparaging — critics took absolute ecstatic delight in being given a movie so terrible they could write elaborate and colorful metaphors about it.
Movie critique as a job can grow rote over time; it’s rare for a film to make such an ignoble debut that critics’ work reviewing employs lush and vivid language in describing their bodily recoil. In the case of Cats, one can easily imagine critics rubbing their hands together with anticipatory excitement as they left their screenings to get in front of their laptops and write. All the critic pull quotes on Rotten Tomatoes’ page for Cats (the rating is at a deplorable 18 percent, by the way) are a treat to read no matter how much or how little you want to see the film itself — and that is the ultimate death knell for Cats.
Once again, the only excitement reflected by its consumers is to relate how much they hated it. Critic reviews still count for something among those who aren’t Extremely Online (and will want to see Cats specifically because of the atrocious reviews), which means the overwhelmingly negative consensus on Cats will reach even your out-of-touch grandma and put her off from suggesting the film for her once-a-year trip to the movie theater with the family.
Written by: Looper
