With the long-awaited film version of the musical Cats having just landed in theaters, patrons can’t help but notice…Judi Dench’s very human hand has a cameo in the film.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, which has underperformed at the box office, features Dench and its other human performers as anthropomorphic cats using motion capture technology. Viewers over the weekend noted several shots where the effects didn’t look finished, including one shot that shows Dench’s hand sans fur and wearing a wedding band.
Related: Broadway legend Betty Buckley on her new concert series, and the upcoming ‘Cats’ movie
Discussion of the shot comes as director Tom Hooper has publically expressed his frustration with the timeline for finishing the film; he apparently was still working on it the day of the premiere. Universal also released a statement over the weekend saying that exhibitors would receive a new version of the film December 22 which would include updated visual effects, reportedly at Hooper’s request.
Cats opened last weekend to the tune of $2.6 million in box office receipts, far below projections for the film.
This isn’t a joke: CATS was rushed into theaters before being finished so a new version is being sent to theaters with updated effects. How do you know if you have the old version? Look for Judi Dench’s human hand, wedding ring and all. pic.twitter.com/VDUOevePU9
— Jenelle Riley (@jenelleriley) December 22, 2019
Kangol2
This movie looks so horrendous I have to see it.
Josh447
From what the IMDB reviews report, it’s not one of those ‘it’s so bad it was good’ movies. It’s just plain bad.
Josh447
Releasing an update because the movie was unfinished when it opened in theaters? Never heard of such a thing. Sounds like the desperation is over the top to try and save this very dead Cat.
Kangol2
@Josh447, one thing they ought to do is re-edit Jason Derulo’s “Anaconda” right back in!
justgeo
Why WTF as if it wasn’t overdone to begin with Stupid ass shit– what did they expect?
Maybe on Netflix or something no extra $$$ from me.
OzJosh
However bad the movie is, reading the reviews – almost all of them total pans – has been highly entertaining. Critics have been working themselves into unprecedented levels of incredulity, disdain and contempt.
MISTERJETT
i have absolutely no interest in seeing this movie.
mz.sam
Both movie goers and unanimously all films critics said Cats, the movie belongs in the kitty litter.
RichNYC
I’ve had quite a few friends appear in the Broadway version of Cats, so I decided not to see this version—it looked strange and overwrought to me. And all that dialogue that was added. Cats magic happened onstage, not in a massive CGI inspired mess.
Ronbo
After hearing and fearing that I could miss Cats! on Broadway, I succumbed. It was just awful and most of the audience left after “Memories”. You could tell that wasn’t the first time, at intermission the usher asked if we’d be coming back saying that if everyone left they could go home early!
We stayed and moved up front. Not better up there either. It was like finding a furball of vomit in my shoe.
Part of the disappointment may have been that I Saw both Angels on Broadway and had similar expectations of thought-provoking emotional grandeur.
Kangol2
Yes, the Broadway version of Cats was atrocious (I thought), but when I saw it, years ago, most of the audience not only stayed but was singing along to those awful songs. “Memories” is probably the best out of all of them, too. I saw Chicago right around the same time, and that musical is so far ahead of Cats in terms of quality, as are the lesser works of Steven Sondheim, Rogers & Hammerstein, Rogers & Hart, etc. Even The Fantasticks (which played forever in the Village in NYC) makes Cats seem like a child with no musical ability wrote Andrew Lloyd Webber’s dreck. But the movie sounds so unredeemable I almost have to see it!
PoetDaddy
Just a little fact-check note here: The title of the big song from CATS is “Memory,” singular, not “Memories,” plural.
jcoberkrom
As if this will help this bomb !
ScottOnEarth
I cannot believe someone thought this ridiculous film would be anything but a complete travesty. It looks creepy, low-rent and just bad.
jdr11201
I don’t mind cats, but these kitty’s look very scary … ;o. Am I wrong to feel this way ?
Gadfeal
I’ve always viewed “Cats The Musical” as disturbing. It’s anthropomorphizing taken to a fetish extreme. While it is fun and innocent in a fantasy cartoon for kids, when the personification is a physiognomic morphing of human and feline, it reeks of Frankensteinish or Island of Dr. Moreau horrorfic “abomninations”.
It’s just that CGI has pushed the scale from “cartoonish”/unreal to disturbingly unnatural.