It stars James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson and Francesca Hayward.

Victoria also happens to meet the mischievous twins, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, who enjoy causing trouble and messing with things in the house of their human family.

Victoria dances a ballet solo in the moonlight but is distracted by Cassandra harassing Grizabella, a former glamour cat who was banished from the tribe for, among other things, her past allegiance with Macavity, a notorious criminal and con artist capable of teleportation.

A seductive femme fatale named Bombalurina interrupts the ball, distracting the Jellicles present with a song and dance number praising Macavity and simultaneously incapacitating them with catnip.

Old Deuteronomy names Grizabella the Jellicle Choice and sends her off to the Heaviside Layer in a chandelier (repaired by Mr. Mistoffelees' magic to float like a hot air balloon).

The Jellicles, reunited with their kidnapped brethren, and perched on a lion statue, watch Grizabella ascend as the morning sun appears above the horizon.

[42][43] Dench was cast in the original stage musical, but had been forced to pull out due to a torn Achilles tendon; Lloyd Webber and Hooper made Old Deuteronomy a female cat and offered her the role.

[44] In November 2018, ballet dancers Francesca Hayward and Steven McRae, and Rebel Wilson, Jason Derulo and Robert Fairchild joined the cast of the film, with rehearsals commencing at Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire, England.

[53] Wells also played a number of instruments on the music himself, including the drums, pipe organ, bass guitar and Abbey Road's fabled Mrs Mills piano, used in Beatles songs such as "Penny Lane" and "With a Little Help from My Friends".

"[56] When production moved to digital options, companies like Technicolor SA subsidiaries Mill Film and MPC joined in for the visual effects.

[59] In an interview with The Daily Beast, a VFX editor who worked on the movie confirmed that an early, half-finished iteration of Cats featured visible anuses.

[61] The VFX process was reportedly hindered by Hooper's rejection of the usual CGI workflow: rather than viewing partially-rendered "playblasts" of scenes to check movement before fine details such as lighting and fur were added, he demanded costly and time-consuming full renders before reviewing scenes, and told crews that real-life references of cats must be used for every movement, which someone had to point out was impossible because "cats don't dance.

[59][61][62][63] At the 92nd Academy Awards, Corden and Wilson appeared in character as Bustopher Jones and Jennyanydots, mocking the film's CGI while presenting Best Visual Effects.

The film's original release contained numerous CGI errors and glitches, such as one scene in which Judi Dench's human hand, complete with her wedding ring, appears instead of Old Deuteronomy's cat paw.

[81] Universal hoped that the film would appeal to young women as counterprogramming against Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and emphasised Swift in marketing.

The site's critics consensus reads: "Despite its fur-midable cast, this Cats adaptation is a clawful mistake that will leave most viewers begging to be put out of their mew-sery.

[77] Peter Debruge of Variety called the film "one of those once-in-a-blue-moon embarrassments that mars the résumés of great actors (poor Idris Elba, already scarred enough as the villainous Macavity) and trips up the careers of promising newcomers (like ballerina Francesca Hayward, whose wide-eyed, mouth-agape Victoria displays one expression for the entire movie)."

[89] In the Los Angeles Times, Justin Chang wrote: "With its grotesque design choices and busy, metronomic editing, Cats is as uneasy on the eyes as a Hollywood spectacle can be, tumbling into an uncanny valley between mangy realism and dystopian artifice.

In a review parodying "The Naming of Cats", he criticised the visual style and particularly the character design, while lambasting the film as a "dreadful hairball of woe".

[91] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times felt that Hooper had made "a robust effort" to adapt the stage musical—which "was always going to be difficult, particularly once the decision was made to create a live-action version rather than an animated one"—and "enlisted some talented performers", but that the film version suffered from a lack of the human connection that theatre involves, where performers and audience share a space, without which "all that's left are canned images of fit-looking people meowing and raising their rumps high in the air".

"[95] Ty Burr of The Boston Globe's half-star review said "there are moments in Cats I would gladly pay to unsee" and warned small children to not watch the film.

He reported that the preview audience laughed like the reaction to Springtime for Hitler during Dench's "The Ad-dressing of Cats", because each pause in her lyrics seemed to be the end of the film ("at long last") before continuing.

"[97] Pete Hammond of Deadline complimented Taylor Swift's performance as Bombalurina and her signature "Macavity" number, as well as "Beautiful Ghosts", which she wrote along with Lloyd Webber.

"[63] Jennifer Hudson similarly received praise for her rendition of "Memory", with some critics describing it as "the best part" of the film[100] and "the sole musical number in the new movie that summons real feeling".

"[102] He later revealed in an interview with The Daily Telegraph: "I wrote to the head of Universal and said, 'You've got a car crash on your hands unless you get a grip on this thing', a year before they made (it).

"[103] In a 2021 interview with Variety, Lloyd Webber claimed his negative reaction to the film had even directly inspired him to adopt a Havanese dog.

[104] Simon Wells, who was previously set to direct the animated film adaptation for Amblimation, said that the live action version had "a lot of things about it that are not good.