History YMMV / Cats

** As noted on the main page, the film is far from the only production to [[PromotedToLoveInterest push the Victoria/Mistoffelees ship]]; most of the people calling straight-ironing have only seen the 1998 filmed production, which [[HoYay heavily teased him with Tugger instead]], and assumed it applied to all stage productions.

* AudienceAlienatingPremise:
** As WebVideo/SchaffrillasProductions pointed out, the film could be considered only enjoyable to fans of the original stage show, since film adaptations of stage musicals are already a tough sell to general moviegoers, and those unfamiliar with the show are unlikely to enjoy a film that essentially lacks a plot. However, some ''Cats'' fans are quite vocal about their dislike for the adaptation [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks thanks to the changes done in execution]].
** Disregarding the actual musical fans, the ''extremely'' (often bizarrely) sexualized nature of the film also qualifies as this. Many reviewers have commented on the fact that kids wouldn't be allowed to watch the film because of the rampant and gratuitous fanservice, [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids despite the film's PG rating and the family-friendly nature of its inspirations]]. However, [[EvenNerdsHaveStandards not even furries find the sexualization titillating]], due to the UncannyValley look and lyrics that make its horniness seem completely out of place.
** Many critical reviews have pointed out that the structure of the original musical is uniquely ill-suited to the narrative of a feature film, being more of a live-audience [[ExcusePlot ensemble spectacle]] for the music and dancing (which is [[JustHereForGodzilla pretty much all most people are here to see anyway]]) than it is an attempt to tell a coherent story. This leaves any attempt at a film adaptation more-or-less doomed from the start, as it would require the filmmakers to thread the difficult needle of creating a traditional narrative arc from whole cloth, something which would most likely necessitate massive changes [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks sure to upset fans of the musical which are the film's primary audience]]. Not to mention that the reduced immediacy of a film versus a live Broadway musical means that the impressiveness of the dancing inherently has less impact on the audience, even without a layer of [[UncannyValley questionable]] [[SpecialEffectFailure CGI]] slathered over top.
* AuthorsSavingThrow: Shortly after the opening weekend, Universal issued a revised version of the film with "some improved visual effects," which attempted to assuage concerns about UncannyValley visual effects; it made some minor modifications to lighting and such, but couldn't appease people's problem with the uncanny valley of human-cat hybrids. If anything, this fix backfired, as it brought even more attention to the film's effect issues and was viewed as a desperate move to get people to see the movie, with many equating it to a video game getting a Day One Patch.

** [[https://youtu.be/DNBfo0dbEzY "Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat"]] is also very well done and catchy compared to the rest of the film. Special mention goes to the tap dance number.

** Skimbleshanks is just another Jellicle candidate, but given that his scene was one of the few that a majority of audiences found enjoyable is probably the single most popular cat to audiences. Even before his introduction proper, his distinct look as one of the cats in ensemble scenes made him visually interesting.

* {{Narm}}:
** In the climactic last verse of "Memory", the orchestra is mixed so loud that it nearly drowns out Music/JenniferHudson's voice.

* BrokenBase:
** As evidenced by this very page, there are three solid camps in regards to the film's original song "Beautiful Ghosts": One camp thinks it's an excellent song and were it not tied to this movie it would be widely liked, another camp that thinks the song sounds like the rushed song performed by a non-singer that it is and undercuts the movie's showstopping number "Memory," and a moderate third group that finds the song itself to be pleasing out of context, but agreeing that it undercuts "Memory"--the entire purpose of "Memory" being that it's a much heavier song than the rest of the soundtrack that undeniably proves Grizabella to be deserving, which gets hurt if there's a very similar song that basically exists so another character can claim Grizabella ''isn't''.

** Many have compared the character designs to [[https://youtu.be/L05cJ5G6T9A?t=39 this human-faced cat]] from ''Film/WhatWeDoInTheShadows''.

*** The comparisons become extra HilariousInHindsight when it was announced Idris Elba (Macavity) would be voicing Knuckles in the ''Sonic'' movie’s sequel.

** Many comparisons to the original trailer for Creator/{{Paramount}}'s ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' [[Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020 movie]] have been made. Many have joked that the movie is actually an adaptation of ''VideoGame/SonicRush'', with Big the Cat being in it for whatever reason. Others have pasted Sonic's UncannyValley face on the humanoid cat bodies, the results are surprisingly preferable. There's also jokes that Sonic saying "Uh... meow?" was actually {{Foreshadowing}}. Not helping is the fact that Moving Picture Company did VFX work on ''both'' movies.

** Many comparisons to the original trailer for Creator/{{Paramount}}'s ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' [[Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020 movie]] have been made. Many have joked that the movie is actually an adaptation of ''VideoGame/SonicRush'', with Big the Cat being in it for whatever reason. Others have pasted Sonic's UncannyValley face on the humanoid cat bodies, the results are surprisingly preferable. There's also jokes that Sonic saying "Uh... meow?" was actually {{Foreshadowing}}.

** Finally, as this film was one of the last major studio releases that made it to theaters prior to the UsefulNotes/CoronavirusPandemic of 2020 onward and all the misery it wrought on both pop culture and society as a whole (especially in the United States due to it crossing paths with the divisive Creator/DonaldTrump administration), jokes that the movie ''really was'' a harbinger of the End Times, as so many had snarked prior to release and in reviews, proliferated.

* AnimationAgeGhetto: It's been hypothesized that the only reason that the proposed {{animated adaptation}} fell through, despite the near-universal consensus that it would have been a more appropriate medium to adapt the show into than [[UncannyValley hyper-realistic, CGI-heavy live-action]], was because Universal attempted to [[AwardBait guarantee Oscar prestige]] by deliberately kowtowing to the Academy of Arts and Sciences' [[BiasSteamroller unflinching preference for gritty, realistic live-action and prejudice against animation]].

** Finally, as this film was one of the last major studio releases that made it to theaters prior to the UsefulNotes/CoronovirusPandemic and all the misery it wrought on both pop culture and society as a whole (especially in the United States due to it coming on top of the divisive Creator/DonaldTrump administration), jokes that the movie ''really was'' a harbinger of the End Times (a not-uncommon joke prior to release) proliferated.

** [[https://youtu.be/DNBfo0dbEzY "Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat"]] is also very well done and catchy compared the rest of the film. Special mention goes to the tap dance number.

** [[https://youtu.be/DNBfo0dbEzY "Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat"]] is also very well done and catchy compared the rest of film. Special mention goes to the tap dance number.

** Creator/EvanRachelWood's [[https://twitter.com/ciairefoy/status/1210141093989359617 Instagram review of the film immediately became this]].

** The theatre fans were not pleased with changes made to the score. Just about the only song where theatregoers deemed the changes acceptable was Skimbleshanks - which simply got retooled into a more modern sounding genre. Meanwhile, the Jellicle Ball has a disco section halfway through, "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" reverted to the slow, jazzy version originally used in London (rather than the up-tempo version popularised in later productions), and "The Old Gumbie Cat" has Rebel Wilson focusing more on comedy than vocal perfection, in addition to singing one of the harmony parts (original sung by three people) as a solo. For these fans of the show's music, the soundtrack to this film essentially [[FanonDiscontinuity doesn't exist]].

** The theatre fans were not pleased with changes made to the score. Just about the only song where theatregoers deemed the changes acceptable was Skimbleshanks - which simply got retooled into a more modern sounding genre. Meanwhile, the Jellicle Ball has a disco section halfway through, "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" reverted to the slow, jazzy version originally used in London (rather than the up-tempo version popularised in later productions), and "The Old Gumbie Cat" has Rebel Wilson focusing more on comedy than vocal perfection. For these fans of the show's music, the soundtrack to this film essentially [[FanonDiscontinuity doesn't exist]].

** Some theatre fans were not pleased with changes made to the score. Just about the only song where theatregoers deemed the changes acceptable was Skimbleshanks - which simply got retooled into a more modern sounding genre. Meanwhile, the Jellicle Ball has a disco section halfway through, "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" reverted to the slow, jazzy version originally used in London (rather than the up-tempo version popularised in later productions), and "The Old Gumbie Cat" has Rebel Wilson focusing more on comedy than vocal perfection. For these fans of the show's music, the soundtrack to this film essentially [[FanonDiscontinuity doesn't exist]].

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: Taken individually, many of the visuals and rendering in the movie is quite impressive, with ''enormous'' amounts of animal fur, specular lighting and oversized environments. Taken as a surrealist endeavor it has some appeal, but the character designs inherently slammed into the UncannyValley and as a full length movie not every scene will maintain the same level of quality. This incited some online conflict when it came to criticizing the CG effects, as when overworked visual effect houses go bankrupt creating the MoneyMakingShot for blockbuster movies it seems ignorant to criticize the thousands of man hours put into animating poor design choices.

* VisualEffectsOfAwsome: Taken individually, many of the visuals and rendering in the movie is quite impressive, with ''enormous'' amounts of animal fur, specular lighting and oversized environments. Taken as a surrealist endeavor it has some appeal, but the character designs inherently slammed into the UncannyValley and as a full length movie not every scene will maintain the same level of quality. This incited some online conflict when it came to criticizing the CG effects, as when overworked visual effect houses go bankrupt creating the MoneyMakingShot for blockbuster movies it seems ignorant to criticize the thousands of man hours put into animating poor design choices.