CATS

**

Dir: Tom Hooper (PG, 104 mins)

After tackling Les Misérables, director Tom Hooper braves another musical adaptation with a disturbing trailer that broke the internet. Cats looks set to be an incredibly divisive Christmas experience. Let’s face it, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats is somewhat of a curate’s egg/mess/collection of oddities with no point, lampooned by many for good reason. It wasn’t crying out for the big screen, but it’s happened, with freaky CGI. Ballet dancer Francesca Hayward takes the ostensible lead as a very lithe feline appealing to a group of cats, the Jellicles, who have to decide which of their number should go to Heaviside and be reincarnated into a new Jellicle life… utter nonsense. Essentially a series of songs mewed by several cats, this has still attracted a massive cast: Idris Elba, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Hudson, Rebel Wilson, Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, Ray Winstone and James Corden. Why? It’s anyone’s guess. A love of musical theatre? Brave it if you dare. Bring a saucer of milk.

Opens Dec 20

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