While other students took marvelous trips across the world, visited family and had a spectacular holiday break, I spent my time watching “Cats,” a movie based on the play of the same name. This feline-filled film directed by Tom Hooper is about a gang of cats and their competition to ascend to be reformatted as a new member of the group. So essentially, the cats are trying to die, then be resurrected to rejoin the group as a fresh, new cat

I entered the movie with optimism, despite hearing many negative takes on the film. But after the first moment of dancing, singing human cats, I knew I was in for a long hour and 45 minutes. 

These human sized cats were truly terrifying and even by the end, I couldn’t get over them. They were what I assume sleep paralysis demons to be, with their skin-tight fursuits and, yes, the hissing. Their combination of human and cat parts (human hands and feet with cat tails and ears) was a terrifically unsettling combination that distracted me from everything else in the film.

I could spend the entire review writing about the insanely horrible CGI costumes, but I think it’s worth going into the story itself, which is often (rightfully) overlooked because of  the cats’ appearances. Almost every line of this film was sung, so it was difficult to understand what was happening. Once I finally got the grasp of the film, I quickly understood how boring and eerie it is.

As I mentioned earlier, this group of cats called the Jellicles “make the ‘Jellicle choice,’ deciding which of them will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life.” (IMDb). Sound absurd to you? Well, it should. 

Another issue I faced was the characters. For the first half of the film, characters were constantly being introduced one after another via song, exhausting me to the point of not even caring as to when the actual plot would begin. 

Now, I won’t spoil the film, as I’m sure everyone desperately wishes to see it, but the ending was somewhat predictable and extremely bleak. Ultimately, I would recommend you save your $15 and watch “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in the theater next door.