Cats 2019: Every Song Ranked From Least To Most Horrifying
14. Mr. Mistoffelees
The content of this song might have been odd - with magic that's never explained the driving force of this sequence where Mister Mistoffelees the magic cat was expected to magick Old Deuteronomy back away from the clutches of the malicious Macavity - but both the execution and the point at which this sequence comes in the film makes it one of the more enjoyable, and even weirdly sensible, moments in CATS.
It's a fun song, well-performed, and at this point everyone's kind of accepted that nothing is supposed to make sense, and of course Mistoffelees can magick their leader back if he believes hard enough.
It's pretty much the climax of the film, and a good one, where the shy, uncertain Mistoffelees is encouraged by the other cats, especially Munkustrap, into believing in himself and presenting his own worth as a Jellicle, a slow crescendo that's both musical and emotional, and apart from Skimbleshanks, it's one of the more purely joyful sequences in the film, and might have at least left audiences on a high note - if it had been nearer to the ending.