FILM

Why Do We Need a "Cats" Movie?

Cats is a terrible, terrible, terrible musical.

FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY; MICHELINE PELLETIER/SYGMA/GETTY; JOHN SCIULLI/GETTY

Cats is the Broadway equivalent of listening to a real cat being murdered.

Amongst musical fans, Cats is basically a joke at this point. There are so many amazing musicals on Broadway, from old favorites like Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables to newer hits like Hamilton. And yet somehow, through what can only be the work of some unknowable cosmic horror, Cats continued to get butts in seats for decades. Who was still going to see Cats in 2016? Why would anyone subject themselves to such torture? Was a cabal of masochistic audiophiles singlehandedly keeping Cats afloat to play into their kinks?

Watching Cats live is a brutal experience, as it is terrible on every possible level. The music is barely listenable, cloying and screechy and singsongy. Yes, "Memory" is decent and "Mr. Mistoffelees" is fine if you've never listened to another musical before. But neither of these make up for the fact that "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" is an actual crime against humanity. Just try to make it through "Jellicle Cats" without killing yourself. Just try:

Jellicle Songs (Part 1) | Cats the Musicalwww.youtube.com

Amazingly, the narrative of Cats manages to be even worse than the music. The plot is completely nonsensical, following a bunch of singing cats as they embark on a giant acid trip, constantly finding new cats to dry heave on until they finally sacrifice an old cat to their acid cat god.

Choreography consists entirely of grown adults jumping on and off of platforms and sometimes rubbing their butts together. The costuming is terrifying, with everyone looking like an army of possessed Ronald McDonalds in cat-print spandex. I once read an interview with one of the actors who said that the entire cast was high off their a** for every single performance, and I'm pretty sure I made that up but I still believe it with 100 percent certainty.

In short, Cats is inarguably the worst musical in the history of Broadway––a blight on Andrew Lloyd Webber's otherwise stellar career––and everyone who enjoyed it suffered from some degree of Stockholm syndrome. Now, finally, Cats is off Broadway. So, DEAR G*D, why would anybody ever make a movie version?

It's not even a question, the Cats movie is going to be awful. The director is Tom Hooper, the man responsible for casting Russell Crowe as Javert in the movie version of Les Miserables, resulting in the world's single worst rendition of "Stars." If Tom Hooper was capable of screwing up an amazing show like Les Miserables, imagine the absolute mess he can make out of heaps and heaps of cat vomit.

Perhaps we'll finally get to watch Taylor Swift pretend to remove fleas from her skin, or see James Corden hump Jason Derulo in a new Bustopher Jones/ Rum Tum Tugger romantic subplot that I just decided I actually kind of want to happen. But most likely, the new Cats movie is just going to be straight-up terrible, because everything involving Cats is always terrible.

See for yourself below:

CATS - Official Trailer [HD]youtu.be