“Cats,” the movie, has once again united the internet in horror. The July trailer shocked viewers by transforming the film’s star-studded cast into bizarre human-feline hybrids. But that was just the beginning. Reviewers wrote seething, stunned reviews of the movie (an adaptation of the long-running musical), which stars Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Hudson, and Idris Elba.
But why were the reviews so impassioned? Carrie Rickey, a former film critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, said the intensity may have to do with the time of year.
“Christmas season is very hard for critics because they have to see a whole lot and digest a whole lot in five days, and write faster than the speed of thought. I often vented on a Christmas movie that was kind of trashy,” Rickey said.
Here are some of the most flabbergasted reviews of “Cats”:
“I truly believe our divided nation can be healed and brought together as one by ‘Cats’ — the musical, the movie, the disaster. In other news, my eyes are burning. Oh God, my eyes,” wrote Ty Burr of the Globe.
“Artistically, it’s a hairball . . . The show’s been around so long that ‘Cats’ the movie can be diagnosed as a reinfection. It’s hard to imagine anyone involved getting away uncontaminated,” wrote John Anderson of the Wall Street Journal.
“Director Tom Hooper’s outlandishly tacky interpretation seems destined to become one of those once-in-a-blue-moon embarrassments that mars the résumés of great actors . . . This uneven eyesore turns out to be every bit the Jellicle catastrophe the haters anticipated, a half-digested hairball of a movie,” wrote Peter Debruge of Variety.
“Who let the 'Cats’ out? Oof. Oof, oof, oof, oof,” wrote Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times.
“A doctoral thesis could be written on how this misfire sputtered into existence . . . One problem is that ‘Cats’ was directed by Tom Hooper, a well-behaved journeyman (‘The King’s Speech’), who is nowhere near vulgar enough for the challenge he was hired for,” wrote Manohla Dargis of the New York Times.
“I have been processing this movie for the last 24 hours trying to understand anything as terrifying and visceral a trainwreck as ‘Cats’ . . . The fur breasts that distracted us in the trailers are at least subdued,” wrote Alex Cranz of Gizmodo.
“It’s hard to know how to react to ‘Cats,’ other than gape in slack-jawed amazement that the dare has continued for so long,” wrote Scott Tobias of NPR.
“There isn’t much more to ‘Cats’ than the experience of sitting back and watching weird-looking performers pretending to be cats while gyrating to Andrew Lloyd Webber songs,” wrote James Berardinelli of Reelviews Movie Reviews.
“It’s deliberate doggerel. It’s nonsense rhymes. And, for a movie audience accustomed to traits and arcs upon which they can hang their interest, it’s deeply boring,” wrote Kevin Maher of The Times.
"A well-intentioned Pajiba colleague advised the proper way to watch ‘Cats’ would be while enjoying an edible,” wrote Kristy Puchko of Pajiba.
“Attention, moviegoers searching for the worst movie of the year: We have a late-breaking winner . . . This disaster of a movie shouldn’t happen to a dog,” wrote Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.
Alyssa Lukpat can be reached at alyssa.lukpat@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlyssaLukpat.