"Furries" are people who like to wrap themselves in full-body animal costumes from the comic field in their spare time, in order to admire each other at furry meetings, so-called "conventions", to take photos or to do a little scratching of the fur ,
A real furry explosion, a furry Elysium, so to speak, is Tom Hooper's adaptation of the most successful anthropomorphic musical of all time: "Cats". The musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber had supplemented his revue-like adaptation of TS Eliot poems with a ballad called "Memory" written by Trevor Nunn and premiered in London in 1981. Since then, the number with the dancing and singing cats has been running on some international stages for decades. Barbra Streisand also purred "Memory" in the charts all over the world for weeks in 1981.
photo gallery
11 pictures
"Cats" as a film: Meow MioJennifer Hudson sings the song in the film version by director and co-author Hooper ("Les Misérables"). Hudson as a former, run-down "cat star" Grizabella, as well as the remaining "Jellicle" tube tigers Victoria (played by ballerina Francesca Hayward), Macavity (Idris Elba), Munkustrap (Robbie Fairchild), Alt Deuteronimus (Judi Dench), Bustopher Jones ( James Corden) and Bombalurina (Taylor Swift) are in the fur up to the human paws.
Some of the cats also don't seem to take animal charity very seriously and confidently wear a foreign fur over their own - rabbit, mink or dead relatives are not easy to find out. The second fur of the wise Alt Deuteronimus, who in the lean plot (also in the film) can choose between the character-establishing songs of one of the street kittens to climb up into a diffuse cat heaven, is in any case an impressive structure worthy of a queen, including a long train, tone-in Tone with Deutoronomy's original hair color.
"Cats"
USA 2019
Directed by Tom Hooper
Screenplay: Lee Hall, Tom Hooper
Actors: Francesca Hayward, Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Laurie Davidson, Judi Dench
Production: Working Title Films, Monumental Pictures
Distribution: Universal Pictures Germany
Length: 111 minutes
FSK: from 0 years
Start: December 25, 2019
In addition to the convincing costume performance, which especially kicks the outfits celebrating the 80s with gauntlets and fuzzy wigs on the musical stages in the corner where they belong, the film does not offer much. So absurd, (despite Cordan and Dench) so free of self-irony, a feeling for camp or real, usable emotions that are present in the figure of the deregistered cat diva Grizabella is the film adaptation that one would like to hiss at. Although the glycerine tears flow freely in Hudson's interpretation of the musical climax "Memory", it doesn't become clear why the old babe doesn't just pull a few herringbones out of the trash and troll.
Only the capable comedian Rebel Wilson in her role as a lazy house cat Jennyanydots can briefly put aside the woe in her song about the differences between domestic and roof cats. Helped by a group of singing mice and an army of dancing cockroaches - the proportions of the costumed people generated by the post-production alone are funny. And it certainly makes you feel good when you can tell your friends that you played a cockroach in "Cats".
But what the post-production and the CGI otherwise provide is a tragedy: If you look at the - partly professional - dancers on the partially hairy feet, you can see the green screen in all scenes in the background, you can see the paws a few centimeters above the floor jiggle, and involuntarily thinks of TV tricks from the 70s, perhaps from the "Show with the Mouse". After all, the backdrop itself is pretty. In nocturnal London, with its cobblestone pavement (which explains the inflationary use of green screen), which is wet with dancers' feet, the cats meet between a facade-sized "Pipurr Heidsieck" advertisement, a few rubbish bins, the milk bar and the ballroom.
In the video: The trailer for "Cats"
Universal Pictures
The previously released trailer, however, caused excitement immediately after it appeared on the net. It is "disturbing", causes "nightmares" and is visually horrible. The critics especially complained that one could see female (and male) curves under the cat morphsuits - the costume designers paid attention and shamelessly did not tinker a single cat teat.
But Miau Mio, maybe you should just classify "Cats" as a horror film: That the film got a release in Germany from 0 years (in the USA it was rated as "PG", so it can only be enjoyed when accompanied by a legal guardian), would make him the first family-friendly horror shocker in the world.