Cats

Fantastic! The best musical and the best show of all times makes a magnificent film. It has advantage of showing everything in details and details are grand. Scenery, costumes and make-up are perfect. Music is superb (especially Jellicle Ball and Macavity). The best thing about the movie is certainly the cast. Actors not only sing and dance splendidly but also imitate feline movements and manners amazingly well. And how do they act! I absolutely adore Michael Gruber as manly and handsome Munkustrap. Elaine Paige as Grizabella would leave nobody indifferent. Veerle Casteleyn with her wonderful eyes is the most touching Jemima, John Partridge is irresistibly attractive and funny Rum Tum Tagger, Phyllida Crawley-Smith is very graceful Victoria, Jacob Brent is charming Mistoffelees, Aeva May and Rosmary Ford make a beautiful pair of adult cats: reserved Demeter and sensuous Bombalurina. Sir John Mills is a little unexpected guest star, but he is perfect Gus the Theatre Cat ("the star of the highest degree"). Eliote's text is witty, and there are a lot of amusing scenes in the show. My favourite ones are The Gumbie Cat, Mangojerry and Rumpleteaser, Pekes and the Pollicles, Scimbleshanks the Railway Cat. Watching this film is an endless joy for my family and me.

Since I first saw the musical, "Cats", in 1987, I have always wanted to see it on video. I was thrilled when it finally arrived. I immediately bought it.

The video performance was terrific: better than I expected. Instead of seeing it from the viewpoint of being in the audience, cameras were actually on stage, moving throughout the performers! The sound is terrific, and it played on my audio system wonderfully.

Of course, there is a flaw in the video. To me, it is actually a glaring flaw: a major segment of the musical, my favorite sequence in fact, is missing. Maybe it was cut for time, but I was very disappointed. "Growltugger's Last Stand" is one of the more elaborately staged portions of "Cats". For it to be removed from this performance will certainly upset many of the true fans of "Cats".

I was prepared to score a 10 out of 10 for this show, but with the editing, I can only score it a 7. Andrew Lloyd Webber himself produced this video. He should have left that portion in.

George

Veteran David Mallett, who directed many music videos for great artists such as Asia, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, Phil Collins, David Bowie, Queen, Blondie, U2, AC/DC, The Who, Rod Stewart, Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Tina Turner, Madonna, Erasure, Rush, Roxy Music, etc., is doing a great job here, directing Andrew Lloyd Weber's wonderful music. An extraordinary distribution, excellent choreography, superlative costumes and makeup, everything superb. One of John Mills' latest films.

Please watch this version instead of the 2019 film version. This version is so much better and quite frankly features the best cast of Cats yet. If you can't find the dvd all the clips are available to watch on the Cats YouTube page.

What else is there to be said? Nothing, so I'll just say what I thought. It took me years to get round to Cats. I knew nothing about it until I put it on. Though of course I somehow knew the words to that infamous song when it came on, thus is its complete suffusion into popular consciousness. I didn't know what I was watching for the first hour. It made no sense. However near the end something clicked and I totally understood why it was so popular and enduring. It's because the only way to watch it is through a child's mind. You cannot try to grasp on anything, you just have to let yourself go on the wacky innocent fun ride and let your feet tap and hands clap when they want to even if they don't know why. Because there is something about it that really makes you feel safe and want to accept the invite to fall into wonder and bright lights and entertainment for simply the love and sake of it. In that regard it is very unique and I understand why it was such a phenomenon. To try to make any logical and critical review of it is just missing the point so not a lot can really be said nor should it. Though one critical note which is I think appropriate is to say that the cast and choreography is really great in how they bring cat humans to life on stage through movement. And seeing this after the existence of the 2019 version (terrible) just puts into perspective how great the staging and choreography is. And also this filmed version is a real nice production with lots of cuts and close ups for you to feel really involved in the show. My fav songs were rum tum tugger, and mr macavofy.