Cats Review: 3 Ups & 7 Downs

The horror, the horror.

By Jack Pooley /

Universal

The movie event of the holidays is finally here - that's right, not Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but Cats.

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Tom Hooper's adaptation of the legendary musical is out now worldwide, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, it's been receiving scathing notices from most critics - after only being press-screened at almost the very last minute, no less.

Ever since the film's first trailer dropped over the summer, Cats has been something of a cinematic punching bag, earning a mixture of derision and disgust from viewers repulsed by its baffling design choices and, yes, those uncanny visual effects.

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Indeed, Cats is a deeply terrible film and one that doesn't even remotely do justice to its iconic source material.

Is it the worst film of the year? No, but it's certainly the most embarrassing blockbuster dud of 2019, regardless of whether it sinks or swims at the box office.

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In the very least, Cats is not a film easily forgotten: it consistently engages in all the wrong ways for most of its deeply peculiar 110 minutes...