Nine Lives

Inoffensive little title. I hadn't seen anything by Kevin Spacey since his ouster from Hollywood, and watched this on DVD in Feb 2023. Was nice to see him, he automatically brings some gravitas to the screen. Watched it with my neighbours, the teenage boy "spoiled" it in the first couple of minutes by telling me that Spacey becomes a cat but I pretty much guessed that had to be the thrust of the film just by looking at the title. Like other reviewers note, this ain't Shakespeare and there are definitely no real surprises, but it was a comforting and family friendly thing we could comfortably watch together. I thought it would be too much for me - we lost their 20-year old ragdoll just a day ago to kidney disease - but this was actually a nice diversion and got our minds off our grief. For 80 minutes their house that had suddenly become quiet and empty was once again brought to life. Watch this with the kids.

I watched it in the company of friends and sometimes just exploded with laughter. A slightly delayed beginning is replaced by a fireworks display of cat passions. A movie to watch in a big company! I wonder if there are many people like me who have asked the question of the possibility of transmigrating the human soul into the body of a cat?:)

I must say, the story and plot line were both fantastic as ever! My downside to this review is the entertainment factor. I had to pause the movie to take a phone call, and then realized, 30 minutes after the phone call ended, that I was still supposed to be watching this movie. It did not have me hooked on enough to remember that I was watching it. Don't get me wrong, it was kind of cool actually, with the characters and the whole set up and dialogue exchanged were really personable and seemed very realistic and natural, and some of the animations were great and some were kind of off at some points, but it was not too bad. What I liked the most was probably the ending scenes where it all comes together and the moral of the story was so beautiful that I still hold on to it.

It's not perfect but not bad at all. Kids would like it. Cat lovers would like it. I'd see it again

OK, I agree that this is no Citizen Kane, but I was amazed at the critical reviews and low IMDb score.

I think perhaps to appreciate this you need to be particularly fond of cats and/or been a cat owner. But if you are then this film is a perfectly serviceable slice of family entertainment, and frankly there are much, much worse films out there. Kevin Spacey and Chris Walken are dependable as always and I think there is plenty about this that kids will enjoy. Worth a look as a Sunday afternoon family film in my opinion, or perhaps as something you can put on to keep the kids amused.