A Talking Cat!?!

Well, sure, I didn't really have much of any high hopes for this 2013 movie titled "A Talking Cat!?!". Why? Well, the movie's synopsis didn't really sell the movie all that well, and it seemed to be a questionable movie at best, and truth be told, having Eric Roberts as the voice of the talking cat wasn't really selling the movie.

But still, as I hadn't already seen the movie, I sat down to watch the 2013 movie from writer Andrew Helm and director David DeCoteau (credited as Mary Crawford!).

And this movie was bad alright, mark my words.

First of all, the storyline seemed like something that was written by a middle school student for a class act to be performed in front of an auditorium full of hopeful parents. Yeah, the storyline wasn't exactly riveting, nor particularly entertaining.

And to make matters worse, the cat shown on the movie's cover wasn't even the cat that was in the movie. The cat on the movie's cover/poster is an adorable and cute kitten, while the cat in the actual movie was more of a chunky adult cat - still cute though, as it is a cat. And to top it all off, Eric Roberts delivered the lines for Duffy the cat with as much gusto and enthusiasm as an inmate on Death Row. I was imagining Eric Roberts at the microphone with a 12 pack of beer in one hand and the script in the other. For all the people that they could have picked from, they chose that guy?

Well, the horror doesn't end there. And by that I mean the atrociously bad animated mouth they put on the cat when it delivered Eric Roberts' flat and monotonous dialogue. It was so fake and seemed like something taken out of a "South Park" episode. It was horrible to witness and such an eyesore.

"A Talking Cat!?!" is a movie that you shouldn't bother spending your time or effort on. Some of us suffered through the ordeal so you don't have to. Believe you me.

My rating of this 2013 abysmal movie settles on a generous two out of ten stars.

I recently watched this "film" for my podcast, where we solely review awful movies. I painstakingly sat through it twice with a stopwatch and timed all of the runtime of the movie spent on establishing shots (there are FIFTY-SEVEN OF THEM), credits, and shots of the cat lying or waddling around. This sums up the movie better than anything:

Between the credits, establishing shots, and shots of the cat, those all take up THIRTY PERCENT OF THE 83-MINUTE RUNTIME. I have never seen a movie that so blatantly pads its runtime with scenery. And what's scarier than that is that there are literally dozens of instances (that I didn't time with the stopwatch) where the human characters are shown doing nothing but sitting and looking at things for several minutes at a time, or walking up stairs, or standing and looking at random objects. It is pathetic how poorly edited and shot this movie is.

Literally nothing happens in this movie. If you don't believe me, go see it. You'll go cross-eyed before you ever find anything resembling a plot. If this thing was competently made just from a sheer editing standpoint, it would be 4 minutes long...if that.

What Script level-0.

Acting level-0 Effort level-0 Production value level-0

-This movie was- Goddamn I can't think of anything to say.

And the fact that this is getting good reviews... I literally curled up to the darkest corner of my room, cried and continuesly asked myself what the heck is wrong with humanity and what could have we possibly done to anger God to the point of punishing us with this visual and audial hell.

I'm scared.

I need a vacation.

I defy anyone to make it through this direct to video disaster in one sitting. I know I couldn't. There is nothing, NOTHING even remotely redeemable about this mess. Zero production values, a canned and looped music score that would be far more fitting for interrogations of enemies of the state, painful performances from has been's (WTF how desperate were Kristine DeBell and Johnny Whittaker in order for them to debase themselves like this?!) along with a talentless cast of young up and comers, and -the coup de gras- the most unbelievable "talking cat" effect you will ever see. This entire video (I refuse to call it a movie) is an endurance test for only the most brave of souls. Your rage will set in after the first fifteen minutes, and from there on out it's a battle of wills to see who will emerge victorious. Many have tried. All have perished. Consider this your only warning.

If you're hear now, you probably caught the "just released" Rifftrax copy on Youtube and you have many, many questions.

Unfortunately I don't have answers... except yes, that director does (soft)porn and yes, a few scenes really do play off as such. Honestly, the acting isn't the worst I've ever seen... or heard. At least most of the actors attempted to do something to be more than a block of wood with a coat of paint drying. Actually, the one I found the most humorous (or sad) was Eric Roberts (Duffy, the cat). All I can picture is Cinema Snob doing an impersonation of Eric Roberts playing a cat. Seriously, go watch Cinema Snob for a bit and watch Duffy again, it's almost uncanny. Too bad Eric Roberts' acting literally sounds phoned in (I'm really trying not to just copy Rifftrax jokes here).

The characters themselves are just two-dimensional and bland and they sterotype so bad that it's just painful to watch, especially the smart daughter, you just wanna whack her upside the head and tell her to stop being such a b**ch.

The plot never actually explains anything about the cat and honestly it comes off as some cheaply made Christian movie. I kept waiting for everyone to stop every five minutes to talk about Jesus and I thought for sure they would connect Duffy to Jesus somehow. Cheap also extends to the... I barely call it effects, but they are special. They animate this "mouth" on the cat and it is just a black circle stretched across his nose. You can see his real mouth around it! I would expect something like that for 1985, but 2013? Even Youtuber's with no budget have created much more convincing cinema quality effects. Though, I'm sure this movie had no budget either (Ed Wood or Harold P. Warren would be proud of this achievement). Oh, yes... I went there, but at least their movies were entertaining to a degree. Oh, don't forget about the occasional laser point or off-camera cat toy to get the cat to do what they need it to do, that's also entertaining to watch.

I also noted a few reviews not understanding how this movie is getting such great reviews. That's easy to answer, they're fake.

Now, a good or bad movie is subject to the person watching it, but there's a point when reviews are saying things like "better than anything George Lucas made" or "this is truly what modern art really is" or even "these are the greatest actors that have ever lived and breathed in all of time" (yes, I'm paraphrasing, but I'm not lying). The reviews are nearly as bad as the movie itself. There are a couple of gems who are probably being sarcastic as one in particular lists the director's softcore movies as if they were AAA-list Hollywood movies making billions at the box office, but still others hold the director in such high regard that they actually try to convince you this movie could topple such movies as 'Infinity War' or 'Titanic'. SOFTCORE PORN, people! Remember that! You don't become a major player in Hollywood on D-list softcore movies that no one has ever heard of.

So, go watch the Rifftrax version because it's the only way you'll be able to sit through this trash.