New Cats trailer is less terrifying, more basic and straightforward

A new Cats trailer is here, led by Taylor Swift and Idris Elba, and veers away from campiness and into traditional holiday movie banality.

After much fanfare, the first Cats trailer burst onto the scene with terrifying CGI cats and Jennifer Hudson’s haunting rendition of “Memory.” For fans of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical based on T.S. Eliot’s book of quirky feline poems, the trailer wasn’t too big of a surprise.

The original Broadway show was an exceedingly popular campy romp featuring cat onesies, whiskered makeup, and depressing songs ruminating on garbage cats living garbage lives that ran for 18 years.

What is surprising is how many A-list stars have flocked to this big screen adaptation in hopes that this musical could propel them to…what exactly, I don’t know. An Oscar? Golden Globe? Grammy?

Yes, Taylor Swift is in this. And James Corden with a laughably big furry belly (ha ha ha). And Rebel Wilson with the girl version of that.

But also Sir Ian McKellen. And Dame Judi Dench, lest we forget. There are two knights of the realm in this movie! Judi Dench has been nominated for an Oscar seven times and already won one! I fear that Cats won’t clench her a second Oscar… (But I’ve been wrong before.)

Even director Tom Hooper, who made the huge, pretentious musical set piece, Les Miserables, feels a bit miscast here. Perhaps Lloyd Weber is secretly the godfather of Hollywood and has the ability to pull in anyone he wants with a single, overly stylized phone call.

Those familiar with Cats as a Broadway production shouldn’t be too surprised by the overall messiness (to put it lightly) of the footage that’s been released so far. But my main argument for not only Cats, but any big Hollywood production at this point, is does it have to be CGI?

Theoretically, the actors are dancing and doing the choreography which isn’t so complex for the most part that it requires animation. And they aren’t being depicted as actual anthropomorphic cats (on four legs), but instead to look like people who dressed as cats like the original production.

Why not lean into this aesthetic with some amazing costumes and frightening makeup? It already looks completely insane, born out of a catnip fever dream of Gayle from Bob’s Burgers and a sub-par Thundercats cosplay.

All this to say, let’s talk about the trailer, I guess. The first trailer showcased “Memory” and while it is one of, if not the, best known songs from Cats, it is also a deeply depressing song, especially when sung by a CGI cat-ified Hudson.

Idris Elba, 2018’s sexiest man alive, is also more heavily featured in this cut, and unless you’re a furry, you may want to close your eyes when he’s on screen. He is particularly cat-ified with bright green freaky eyes and long white whiskers sprouting out of his face. For those of us who love Elba, it is a horrifying affront.

We get another shot of the glittery, pink catnip bottle that we saw in the first trailer. (Thank God they’re sticking with that edit.) And did I mention Taylor Swift is in this? Lest you forget, her brand new Cats song “Beautiful Ghosts” plays in the background of the trailer.

My biggest problem is that this second trailer seems to be striking much more of a generic Christmas movie trailer vibe than its predecessor, veering away from the fantastical campiness of Cats into much safer, much more basic territory.

It seems like after the reaction to the initial trailer, the Cats marketing team is trying to tone down the CGI furry spandex and sell Cats as more of a generic holiday family film. But there is absolutely nothing that is generic about upright walking and talking cats singing about their own mortality

To be clear, I will be seeing Cats. I am 100% here for this tap dancing jellicle-cat uncanny valley starring every single actor in Hollywood, the West End, and beyond. The question is, will Cats give us the feline nightmare of our dreams, or something completely banal?

We’ll find out one way or another when Cats hits theaters on December 20.