Grade: F …. Cats should be avoided at all costs.

While I am normally a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber and his music, I somehow have not experienced the music of Cats. Of course I have heard the big hit “Memory,” but outside of that, I have not heard the soundtrack.

When the first trailer for Cats was released, I was intrigued. It was very strange looking, but knowing that it contained the music to Cats, I figured I should give it a shot.

Cats was one of the longest running Broadway shows ever. It has well over 6,000 performances under its belt. After seeing the movie, I am perplexed as to why and how it had such enormous Broadway legs.

Of course, I have never seen the Broadway production, but the movie has no real story. One of my friends told me that the songs are T.S. Elliot poems in musical form. That is fine and dandy, but during the whole movie I was confused and second guessing my own intelligence because Cats made no sense to me.

Cats is a extravagant production. The actors are constantly dancing across the screen to Webber’s show tunes and visually it is quite the spectacle. Unfortunately, it is all just smoke and mirrors hiding a movie that forgot to incorporate a story.

The mega-huge all star cast is completely wasted. Taylor Swift is in the movie for one whole song and even Jennifer Hudson barely has much screen time. Hudson sings “Memory” twice and that is about it. Cats mainly focuses on Victoria, portrayed by Francesca Hayward, as she tries to navigate the “Jellicle” life. To be quite honest, I still do not know exactly what a Jellicle cat is and I still unable to tell you exactly what Cats is about. I really wanted to walk out ten or fifteen minutes into the whole mess. I figured I might as well stay to see Hudson nail “Memory.” Hudson does not appear on screen until an hour into the movie, so I decided to sit through the entire travesty of the movie.

Really, the only positive thing I can say about this movie is Hudson’s performance of “Memory.” She is super talented so it was no surprise that she nailed the song. The art direction was well done, but neither aspects are worthy of getting your buttocks in a seat.

Avoid Cats like you would naturally avoid any mean alley cat.