People were upset when Sonic the Hedgehog got teeth—so perhaps the makers of the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Cats should've seen this coming. A collective hiss seemed to emerge from Twitter as the first trailer for Cats dropped Thursday, featuring appearances by Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Judi Dench, Idris Elba, Ian McKellen, and more. The cats not only have human teeth, but also human bodies, eyes, and mouths, along with fur and a tail—a strange mix that some find just a bit off-putting. Four reactions:
- "To be fair, it's an almost-impossible task to blend humans and animals and make them not look like something out of the Island of Doctor Moreau," Gael Fashingbauer Cooper writes at CNET, compiling "horrifying" memes that are already spreading.
- "Vomit not...for you surely cannot afford a new MacBook in this economy," writes Britt Hayes at AV Club, denouncing "the horrors of the unnatural feline-people" in a "cinematic adaptation of one of the most dizzyingly atrocious musicals of all time."
- "Basically, the cats are one-part live-action person, one-part CGI cat, and one-part something you might see after breaking into Area 51," according to Stephen LaConte at BuzzFeed. He notes the "VERY realistic cat ears" and tail don't quite mesh with the otherwise human form of the cats, who walk on two feet.
- "Is this Animal Farm? Four legs good, two legs completely bonkers?" was one of Sophie Gilbert's many questions. "There are cobbles on the street. Is this Victorian London? There's also a lot of neon. Is this Vegas?" she writes at the Atlantic. "Taylor Swift is wearing a unitard and high heels," she adds. "But can cats wear high heels?"
The trailer, viewed more than 2.2 million times
on YouTube, currently has 44,000 dislikes and 32,000 likes. The film is out Dec. 20. (More
Cats stories.)
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