“Cats” (G) ***

SOME critics have dismissed Tom Hooper’s film based on the hit musical “Cats” that opened in 1981 and ran for 21 years in London and for 18 years in New York.

I’ve not seen it live. But I’ve read “Old Possum’s Books of Practical Cats” and we’ve damn nearly worn the tracks off our LP version of the songs performed in the original stage play. 

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music is the only score setting the poems that I am aware of. If that be the case, then the film has some themes that aren’t on the LP. No matter. The music stands for itself.

The translation of stage show to the big screen is not a copycat of any version I have seen on TV. It’s very effective as is the frequent adjusting of dimensions to remind us that although humans are playing the cats, their relative sizes increases the validity of those of the environments in which they are performing.

I can’t foresee how readers will receive “Cats”. You can enjoy it without knowing the poems. If you do know them, I ask you to accept this. Rendering them into song, dance, acrobatics, costumes and images, together created by director Hooper, composer Lloyd Webber and Oscar nominee (Best Screenplay “Billy Elliott”, 2001) Lee Hall entitled them to apply their proven talents to the venture however they thought appropriate and what a budget estimated at $95 million might buy. And it shows.

At Palace Electric, Dendy, Capitol 6 and Limelight.