TRAILER TALK

Unfiltered, uncensored, uncompromising trailer reactions from team EMPIRE

Team Empire takes in the first teaser for Cats, and hacks up a furball along the way.

Chris Hewitt (Review Editor): When this was first announced, I was nervous but also excited about how terrible this film might be. Nobody sets out to make a bad film. But I’m hoping that they’ve made the worst of all time.

Nick de Semlyen (Features Editor): Where are the humans? Is Cats a bit like Cars?

Joanna Moran (Photography Director): The white cat is played by Francesca Hayward, who is the principal dancer at the Royal Opera House.

Nick: I quite like that they’ve got hair inside the ears. That is quite faithful to, er, cats.

Chris Lupton (Creative Director): So does she have six nipples?

James Dyer (Editor-in-chief, Digital): Judi Dench!

Chris L: She looks like Pat Butcher from Eastenders.

James: Is she wearing a fur coat? This is like the equivalent of someone wearing a coat made of human skin.

Chris Mandle (Contributor): It’s a coat made from the skin of her enemies.

Ben Travis (Online Staff Writer): Judi Dench has a cat moustache!

Chris M: Old ladies often do though.

Ben: Did the actors know they’d look like this? How did anyone think this looked okay?

Nick: The technology is quite bad.

Chris L: They got it right with Captain Marvel, de-ageing Samuel L. Jackson.

Chris H: Nobody turned into a cat in Captain Marvel. Although I would see flerkins in this film in a heartbeat.

Joanna: That one’s tail is coming out of its arse.

Chris H: Now we have Jennifer Hudson, who plays Grizabella. She’s like a… prostitute cat, for lack of a better term.

Chris L: She looks like she’s fallen on hard times.

James: The size of the cats is getting to me. They’re like were-cats, but they’re also small! Look at them in that massive house, the proportions are all off.

Chris L: But look at that cat jumping on the bed. That does at least look proportionate.

Chris H: Now there’s a cat dancing around in a graveyard showing off her fanny. Why is this happening?

James: Jason Derulo is here. He looks like Sabretooth.

Nick: Is ‘milk’ like ‘alcohol’ in the world of cats? They’re hanging out at a ‘milk bar’.

James: Now we’ve got Idris Elba, literally a cat in a hat, and he’s also wearing… contact lenses for some reason?

Chris H: He’s Macavity. Not exactly the villain, but he’s the ‘heavy’. The wrong-un. Ben: He does look like a wrong-un.

Ben: It’s upsetting that everyone’s naked.

Chris H: It needs authentic bums and testes.

Chris L: This cast is huge. I thought this next cat was James Corden dressed as a bear and then I realised it was Rebel Wilson.

James: This is not ‘cat-shaming’ but it’s just… there are too many cats! And they are all upsetting to me! I can’t deal with it!

Chris L: Oh but look at Taylor Swift. I have to say I think she looks great.

Chris H: This song does not sound good.

Ben: Let’s be honest. If ‘Memory’ is the signature song from this musical… it’s a total dirge. It’s almost an anti-set-piece, when it should be the film’s big moment. But it doesn’t look like an exciting sequence.

James: The tone of the song is definitely at odds with the very upbeat, actionpacked choreography.

Chris M: It looks like it’s taking place during the throne room in Jupiter Ascending.

Ben: But not in a good way.

Chris H: Why is her hand… a person hand?

Ben: They all have people hands!

Chris L: The sizing is weird. The cutlery is massive. That character is rodent-like.

Chris M: They should have called it ‘Rats’.

Chris L: Oh, Judi does not look happy here.

Ben: Every time I see Judi I think she’s going to look better… and yet!

Chris L: He spat on her!

Nick: I like that it specifically got pulled out for the trailer. “We need the bit where Corden gobs in another person’s mouth.”

Nick: Each of the cast look like they’re at different stages of mutating into a cat. Idris Elba is at about ten per cent. Judi Dench is at about 95 per cent.

Chris M: Idris has only just been bitten by the radioactive cat.

James: So where are the people? Will there be people? Or is this Planet Of The Apes but with singing fucking cats?

Chris M: Okay, it’s over. Roll-call: who is excited to see Cats? I will only watch it very drunk on a plane.

Chris H: No. It’s based on a legendarily bad musical. I do not understand.

Nick: I want to see it. But I also do not want to see it.

Ben: I think I will see it. But I don’t want to see it for the reasons the film wants me to see it.