It’s baffling to me why this received such negative reviews. Aside from James Corden's performance, it proved to be a genuinely entertaining adaptation of a musical that I’ve always enjoyed. Ian McKellen was outstanding in the role of Gus. Jennifer Hudson’s portrayal of Grizabella brought tears to my eyes. Idris Elba was ideal as Macavity. Judi Dench felt like exactly what was needed for Old Deuteronomy. The acting o…

It's rare when a film is so bad that watching it becomes an odd sort of twisted entertainment. That seems to be the situation with "Cats," the attempt to bring Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1982 musical—a Broadway mainstay that has earned over $4 billion—to movie theaters (where it quickly failed). It was fairly obvious from the start that this would be a misstep, because when you begin with something so fundamentally fla…

Occasionally, a film is so remarkably bad that its awfulness becomes an oddly enjoyable experience rather than something to endure. This applies to "Cats," the big screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1982 musical, which enjoyed a long run on Broadway. The stage production of “Cats” has earned more than $4 billion dollars, so naturally Hollywood wanted a piece and brought it to theaters (where it quickly failed…

It’s a widely accepted truth that stage productions, whether plays or musicals, don't always make for effective films because the two art forms are fundamentally different. To doubt this is to be unrealistic. I’ve never thought of Cats as an exceptional musical, though its popularity might suggest otherwise. Still, I couldn’t imagine a film adaptation succeeding, particularly given the costumes involved; it seemed…

I had been looking forward to ‘Cats,’ especially as someone who enjoys musicals. The initial preview heightened my anticipation; the shockingly poor visual effects actually made me more eager to see it. I generally get enthusiastic about large-scale musical productions, hoping they might lead to more of them, but ‘Cats’ simply doesn't work—it falls short in every way. It's a dull musical with songs that are easily fo…