Now Available - Cats

[Pak-Man]

CATS

Feature film · 2022

The film adaptation of the musical that clumped up Broadway’s litter box for eighteen years, riffed for your viewing pleasure.

With Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

See it on RiffTraxIncluded with Best Friends

You demanded it. you monsters, and now it's here: CATS! The film adaptation of the musical that clumped up Broadway's litter box for eighteen years, riffed for your viewing pleasure.

It's the movie that launched a thousand "digital butthole" jokes. You've probably seen some images, skimmed some memes, but nothing really prepares you for the full experience of CATS itself. It's rare a movie can make you feel sorry for so many respected major actors, and also James Corden. Thrill as these stars of stage and screen struggle to sing through digital faces that slide out of place like Snapchat filters!

It's almost certainly the first T.S. Eliot adaptation we've ever done (not counting Suburban Sasquatch, an odd turn in his career). Its legacy will be trivia questions like, "What's the only movie to feature Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, Jason Derulo, and Taylor Swift?" But before that, its legacy is to be riffed by Mike, Kevin, and Bill! Join them for CATS, and finally learn the difference between Jellicle Cats and Gumbie Cats.*

*You will not actually learn this. 

Written by: Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, Conor Lastowka, and Sean Thomason

Contributing writers: Jason Miller and Zach Shatzer

Available FREE to 2022 Kickstarter backers at the $75 and $100+ levels!

[ihavemyreasons]

Oh brother....this one is gonna hurt.

[ephemeris]

Remastering a quickly ordered blu-ray went smoothly.

I'd never seen the movie so I was unsure what to expect... and having watched it, I'm still not sure. Great production values, disturbing CGI, good art direction, miscast actors, and random costuming, (plus eating anthropomorphic cockroaches) makes quite a mess of things.

Long story short, I wouldn't want to watch this without the riff. The riff is solid, executed in a target rich environment. The guys did not stomp the dialog so the plot was easy to follow (to the extent there was a plot). Many winning lines such as:

This is why no-kill shelters might be a bad idea.

Theater kids should never have been given this much power.

And spray!

A good riff and well worth the cost of the blu-ray.

[eegah]

Soooooo, what is the appeal of the Broadway show? The "story" is a whole lot of nothing. Is it just the dancing and singing unmemorable (heh) songs? What makes this movie worse that the Broadway show? Specifically, why are the ratings for the movie so low but the Broadway show so popular? I just don't get it.

The riff is good though. Lots of laughs. I think we laughed hardest at a Disembaudio sync line, though ("I think that the cockroaches need employment").

[ihavemyreasons]

What the fuck did I just watch? Was it supposed to have a plot? And that shit made like a billion dollars on Broadway? I never thought I'd see a worse cat movie than A Talking Cat but now I have. It was like a Disney movie if Disney decided to not animate any of the animal characters to look at all like animals and instead of using well known song writers they took a generic show tune and repeated it over and over again with different lyrics that didn't do anything to advance the plot. Some good riffs that made it worth watching, but it was painful. No idea what the stupid jellicle cat thing they were singing about was until Bill pointed out that it must mean cats that don't have buttholes.
Favorite riff:
Wow, it sounds like a song that came for free with movie making software in 2003.

[Pastor of Muppets]

I always think of this Itchy and Scratchy when I think of this play / movie.

I haven't watched the riff yet, but I like Disembaudio singing the sync lines.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Soooooo, what is the appeal of the Broadway show? The "story" is a whole lot of nothing. Is it just the dancing and singing unmemorable (heh) songs? What makes this movie worse that the Broadway show?

I mean, the broadway show didn't have a Rebel Wilson vore scene. And Sir Ian McKellan slurping from a bowl. And the weirdly horny vibes (at least not to such an extent).

[Pastor of Muppets]

Soooooo, what is the appeal of the Broadway show? The "story" is a whole lot of nothing. Is it just the dancing and singing unmemorable (heh) songs? What makes this movie worse that the Broadway show? Specifically, why are the ratings for the movie so low but the Broadway show so popular? I just don't get it.

The riff is good though. Lots of laughs. I think we laughed hardest at a Disembaudio sync line, though ("I think that the cockroaches need employment").

I agree.  I think musical theater in general is pretty terrible, but the plot of Cats is so incomprehensible, and it seems to be about 60% character introduction. 

A big part of the criticism of the movie in particular was visual.  People found the CGI human / cat hybrids disturbing.  Some have said that the movie would have been better received if they just did regular costumes like they do in the play.

I did find "Magnificent Mister Mistofeles" pretty catchy though.