Nine Lives: A Surrealist Cat-astrophe
Note: There are what you may want to call spoilers in this post. There is also a lot of crap in this movie. Read at your own risk.
It's hard to write about things. It's hard to describe things sometimes especially before you discuss it with another person. I don't post things as rapidly as I should mainly because it's hard for me to really think out pieces and to have a written opinion that really reflects what I'm thinking. I guess it's sort of a writer's block that I get into very frequently. With writing, you need to have inspiration and passion. Those key aspects will help drive you to write about whatever it is you want to write about. It gets those creative juices flowing and keeps your fingers on the pencil or keyboard long enough to write a cohesive thought.
There are countless books, movie scripts, and poems that have probably been half written or thrown away because of the writer's inability to take an idea to the end and finish it. Some of those ideas may have changed the world. Others were rightfully disposed of. I know that personally. As someon who likes to write, I have tons and tons of unpublished ideas and post that will never see the light of day because I just don't think they are good enough.
But every so often there is something so bizarre that it just screams to be written about. Almost as if I need to warn others of the dangers of this particular piece of entertainment. Many would say that I should have never watched this movie in the first place; that I'm supporting a terrible movie with my money. But I have a blog and having an outlet for your own voice is a powerful, narcissistic tool to an individual. It's a force that can drive people to do almost anything.
Sometimes you need to hold your breath, close your eyes (and then open them again), and watch a really bad movie to bring you out of your writer's block. But just how bad...well...let's just say: there are limits.
Nine Lives was filmed by the studio EuropaCorp. They are the independent movie company that brought you the movie Taken (starring Liam Neeson). The writers of script are all relatively unknown; all were new to Hollywood (two of them worked on a movie called "Squirrels"). The director Barry Sonnenfeld, however, is famous for movies like "When Harry Met Sally" and "Men in Black." Add that to the star-studded cast of Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Garner, and Christopher Walken? What could go wrong? I mean...it's a movie for kids! There isn't much that needs to go right for it to be a success. Right?
Wrong.
Sadly, Nine Lives is too weird and boring for it to be any good whatsoever. The movie isn't even so-bad-its-good thanks to the slow build-up of exposition and weirdly place montages. The cast is energetic but in such a sarcastic and exaggerated way that it just made me cringe while I was watching. The jokes were few and far between. most being either weird CGI cat cartoon-y antics or terrible puns. The movie knew what it was and made you aware of it. It wasn't meant for kids more than it was meant for adults. It seem to be saying: "All these talking animal movies suck, so we're not going to try very hard." Maybe it was trying to be an Avant-Garde art piece disguised as a kids movie.
Here's an outline of the movie plot with as much fluff taken out:
1. [Before credits] Youtube cat videos in low resolution. Kevin Spacey narrate how he hates cats.
2. Kevin Spacey (as Tom Rand) parachutes out of a plane to celebrate his tallest building in the world achievement.
3. Tom Rand finds out his building isn't the tallest now. Chicago has him beat.
4. Second-in-Command (SiC) wants Tom to sell the company. Tom doesn't want to.
5. Tom owns 51% of the shares so "he wins" (whatever that means).
6. Tom is too invested in his building he doesn't care about his family.
7. Tom begrudgingly gets his daughter a cat for her birthday at the last minute. Had to go to a weird Harry Potter store run by Christopher Walkens (The Cat Whisperer)
8. SiC brings calls Tom to the top of a building to discuss the height of it (in the middle of a thunderstorm).
9. Tom almost fires SiC, lighting strikes him, he falls and turns into a cat. His real body is in a coma (on his daughter's birthday mind you)
10. Everyone in Tom's family is sad. Except his daughter who is now 11 and thinks her dad is just asleep.
11. Tom is now a cat.
12, Tom tries to convince his family that he is a cat. Results in failure.
13. Tom is a cat by the way...
14. Despite the feats of drinking alcohol and spelling his name in yarn, Tom's family just think they have a bad cat.
15. They call The Cat Whisperer and he tells Tom he has to be a good cat to be human again.
16. Tom becomes a good cat.
17. Side plots and family stuff. Yawn.
18. SiC tries to kill Tom's real body so that he can take over the company.
19. Tom is still a cat. He can't figure out how to not be a cat yet.
20. It's made painfully obvious throughout the film that Tom's family has the most oblivious family ever.
21. Tom gets to his office (as a cat) and somehow sabotages the SiC's plans a bit by showing that the SiC shredded a legally binding document.
22. Obligatory "Hang in there" poster joke.
23. Tom has a son (I forgot to tell you this but it doesn't matter) who finds the legally binding document all shredded and gets the real document or a copy of it.
24. Tom dances with his daughter and she figures out the cat is her dad.
25. His daughter tries to show her mom, but Tom leaves to save his son (who he thinks is going to commit suicide).
26. Turns out his son was going to crash the opening ceremony of Tom's building where the SiC will assume ownership of the company. SiC doesn't get the company.
27. Tom the cat dies but Tom the human wakes up from his coma.
28. Tom literally says in the movie that he hasn't learned anything from being a cat.
29. Tom hates cats and still wishes he had a dog
End Movie
The movies was boring at its best, downright torturous at its worst. There were times where the movie had such a slow pace and was so quiet that I could hear some type of beeping noise coming from another room in the theater. Maybe that was a sign to run away from this movie and never look back.
The problem with this movie was that it moved so slow that when a joke did come along, it sort of just fizzled out. In fact, I missed most of them. There were these montages and conversations that just seemed to last forever. Most of them just wanted the audience to think a cute cat was funny. The movie knew it was out of jokes from the start and had to fill ninety minutes somehow. It's like the script writers spent all their money on LSD "as inspiration" but instead passed out and woke up the day the script was due and padded what little they wrote the night before with mind numbing dialogue.
And I mention the LSD because the movie is just that weird. They did a good job casting Christopher Walken because that guy knows how to BS a role like a champ. He does not give two cents about being anything but himself in this movie. "The kids want me to be a cat guy, well screw them! I'm just going to phone it in! I should have played the Joker!" (Jared Leto would have actually been a better Cat Whisperer to be honest). Christopher Walken plays the owner of the magical cat shop and apparently shows up at random points in the movie to give advice. But he isn't the weirdest inclusion in the movie. Honestly, it's the inconsistent usage of the CGI version of the cat and the real one that really weirded me out. The problem with the real cat is that it doesn't move its mouth when Kevin talks, but the CGI one does. And they don't just use the CGI cat for the slapstick humor either, they use it for some normal scenes too. They should have just made the cat completely CGI. To add to the confusion, there are just too many cat noises in the movie. Like an obscene amount.The cat does not shut up.
Jennifer Garner (plays Laura Rand) is in this movie too. But something isn't right. There seemed to be hidden innuendo in some of her lines but that could just be me. Her character is supposed to be a loving wife who is forgiving but, weirdly enough, she's also friends with Tom's ex. They come over constantly in the movie to say how neglectful Tom was. She is apparently supposed to be a character in conflict with whether she loves her husband or not, but all she comes off as is a childish woman who let's everyone walk all over her. She wants to leave Tom but apparently the coma he's in makes her think twice. Laura just acts confused the whole movie and it's frustrating. She doesn't even say anything consequential. She also hates cats as well.
It's a movie about cats and everyone hates cats. What's the deal? The only person who shows affection to the cat is Tom's daughter. No one else likes cats at all. Heck, even Christopher Walken doesn't sound like he likes cats and he's the cat whisperer!
There is still so much to talk about. There are side characters and stories that are just so badly written and acted and placed that I don't think even kids would like it. There was so much talk about business and legal action that it really slows down the movie. And that may be a weird thing to say since the studio tries to put Tom-cat (get the pun!? I'm funnier than the movie!) in literally almost every other scene, but it takes Tom almost a third of the movie to get turned into a cat. It's also trying to set so many plot lines in motion that it forgets it's a cat movie. It's a cat movie! Just be simple cat fun, damn you!
Oh man, and the funny part is that Tom Rand is almost a parallel to Donald Trump. I'm not trying to be too political but the similarities are there. Kevin plays a billionaire, he has a failed airline, he's super egotistical and he likes to fire entire divisions of his company. He has what seems to be a trophy wife and his family seems to unconditionally love him for crying out loud oh god we're supposed to ROOT for this character help me pleaaaaasee....
The last disturbing thing I took away from this movie was the whole concept of being turned into a cat. Apparently it is a ritual due to karma. From what I understood, bad people are turned into cats in order to learn who they truly are and to learn a bit about humility. It's like a Christmas Carol but instead of freaky ghosts showing you the way, you just grow fur and walk on all fours. My problem with the movie is what it alludes to: Does the movie mean to say that cats are all just bad people transmuted into cats? Are all people in comas secretly cats just trying to find a way back to their bodies? That's some weird transcendental stuff right there.
In the movie, Tom Rand learns that sacrifice is the real aspect of love. In order to really love, you must sacrifice. He does this by trying to protect his son, who technically didn't commit suicide. His son was parachuting off the building, but Tom (as a cat) did not have a parachute. His selfless (and yet sadly, useless) sacrifice was enough to get him back to his own body.
Nine Lives is no way a kids movie. It has too many heavy themes. I mean I already mentioned comas, suicide, the amount of business in this movie, heck they even talk about technical aspects of architecture! There is even a point in the movie where SiC tries to convince Rebecca Rand to pull the plug. I mean what the hell.
.
In conclusion, don't be like me. Don't write a blog. Don't do anything in journalism that would require you to see this movie. Don't think that seeing a bad movie is fun. Sometimes a movie can be painful. Sometimes they can drag on, even at ninety minutes. I have to admit though, Suicide Squad picked the best opening weekend in terms of competition.
It's hard to write about things. It's hard to describe things sometimes especially before you discuss it with another person. I don't post things as rapidly as I should mainly because it's hard for me to really think out pieces and to have a written opinion that really reflects what I'm thinking. I guess it's sort of a writer's block that I get into very frequently. With writing, you need to have inspiration and passion. Those key aspects will help drive you to write about whatever it is you want to write about. It gets those creative juices flowing and keeps your fingers on the pencil or keyboard long enough to write a cohesive thought.
There are countless books, movie scripts, and poems that have probably been half written or thrown away because of the writer's inability to take an idea to the end and finish it. Some of those ideas may have changed the world. Others were rightfully disposed of. I know that personally. As someon who likes to write, I have tons and tons of unpublished ideas and post that will never see the light of day because I just don't think they are good enough.
But every so often there is something so bizarre that it just screams to be written about. Almost as if I need to warn others of the dangers of this particular piece of entertainment. Many would say that I should have never watched this movie in the first place; that I'm supporting a terrible movie with my money. But I have a blog and having an outlet for your own voice is a powerful, narcissistic tool to an individual. It's a force that can drive people to do almost anything.
Sometimes you need to hold your breath, close your eyes (and then open them again), and watch a really bad movie to bring you out of your writer's block. But just how bad...well...let's just say: there are limits.
NINE LIVES REVIEW:
Nine Lives was filmed by the studio EuropaCorp. They are the independent movie company that brought you the movie Taken (starring Liam Neeson). The writers of script are all relatively unknown; all were new to Hollywood (two of them worked on a movie called "Squirrels"). The director Barry Sonnenfeld, however, is famous for movies like "When Harry Met Sally" and "Men in Black." Add that to the star-studded cast of Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Garner, and Christopher Walken? What could go wrong? I mean...it's a movie for kids! There isn't much that needs to go right for it to be a success. Right?
Wrong.
Sadly, Nine Lives is too weird and boring for it to be any good whatsoever. The movie isn't even so-bad-its-good thanks to the slow build-up of exposition and weirdly place montages. The cast is energetic but in such a sarcastic and exaggerated way that it just made me cringe while I was watching. The jokes were few and far between. most being either weird CGI cat cartoon-y antics or terrible puns. The movie knew what it was and made you aware of it. It wasn't meant for kids more than it was meant for adults. It seem to be saying: "All these talking animal movies suck, so we're not going to try very hard." Maybe it was trying to be an Avant-Garde art piece disguised as a kids movie.
Here's an outline of the movie plot with as much fluff taken out:
1. [Before credits] Youtube cat videos in low resolution. Kevin Spacey narrate how he hates cats.
2. Kevin Spacey (as Tom Rand) parachutes out of a plane to celebrate his tallest building in the world achievement.
3. Tom Rand finds out his building isn't the tallest now. Chicago has him beat.
4. Second-in-Command (SiC) wants Tom to sell the company. Tom doesn't want to.
5. Tom owns 51% of the shares so "he wins" (whatever that means).
6. Tom is too invested in his building he doesn't care about his family.
7. Tom begrudgingly gets his daughter a cat for her birthday at the last minute. Had to go to a weird Harry Potter store run by Christopher Walkens (The Cat Whisperer)
8. SiC brings calls Tom to the top of a building to discuss the height of it (in the middle of a thunderstorm).
9. Tom almost fires SiC, lighting strikes him, he falls and turns into a cat. His real body is in a coma (on his daughter's birthday mind you)
10. Everyone in Tom's family is sad. Except his daughter who is now 11 and thinks her dad is just asleep.
11. Tom is now a cat.
12, Tom tries to convince his family that he is a cat. Results in failure.
13. Tom is a cat by the way...
14. Despite the feats of drinking alcohol and spelling his name in yarn, Tom's family just think they have a bad cat.
15. They call The Cat Whisperer and he tells Tom he has to be a good cat to be human again.
16. Tom becomes a good cat.
17. Side plots and family stuff. Yawn.
18. SiC tries to kill Tom's real body so that he can take over the company.
19. Tom is still a cat. He can't figure out how to not be a cat yet.
20. It's made painfully obvious throughout the film that Tom's family has the most oblivious family ever.
21. Tom gets to his office (as a cat) and somehow sabotages the SiC's plans a bit by showing that the SiC shredded a legally binding document.
22. Obligatory "Hang in there" poster joke.
23. Tom has a son (I forgot to tell you this but it doesn't matter) who finds the legally binding document all shredded and gets the real document or a copy of it.
24. Tom dances with his daughter and she figures out the cat is her dad.
25. His daughter tries to show her mom, but Tom leaves to save his son (who he thinks is going to commit suicide).
26. Turns out his son was going to crash the opening ceremony of Tom's building where the SiC will assume ownership of the company. SiC doesn't get the company.
27. Tom the cat dies but Tom the human wakes up from his coma.
28. Tom literally says in the movie that he hasn't learned anything from being a cat.
29. Tom hates cats and still wishes he had a dog
End Movie
The movies was boring at its best, downright torturous at its worst. There were times where the movie had such a slow pace and was so quiet that I could hear some type of beeping noise coming from another room in the theater. Maybe that was a sign to run away from this movie and never look back.
The problem with this movie was that it moved so slow that when a joke did come along, it sort of just fizzled out. In fact, I missed most of them. There were these montages and conversations that just seemed to last forever. Most of them just wanted the audience to think a cute cat was funny. The movie knew it was out of jokes from the start and had to fill ninety minutes somehow. It's like the script writers spent all their money on LSD "as inspiration" but instead passed out and woke up the day the script was due and padded what little they wrote the night before with mind numbing dialogue.
And I mention the LSD because the movie is just that weird. They did a good job casting Christopher Walken because that guy knows how to BS a role like a champ. He does not give two cents about being anything but himself in this movie. "The kids want me to be a cat guy, well screw them! I'm just going to phone it in! I should have played the Joker!" (Jared Leto would have actually been a better Cat Whisperer to be honest). Christopher Walken plays the owner of the magical cat shop and apparently shows up at random points in the movie to give advice. But he isn't the weirdest inclusion in the movie. Honestly, it's the inconsistent usage of the CGI version of the cat and the real one that really weirded me out. The problem with the real cat is that it doesn't move its mouth when Kevin talks, but the CGI one does. And they don't just use the CGI cat for the slapstick humor either, they use it for some normal scenes too. They should have just made the cat completely CGI. To add to the confusion, there are just too many cat noises in the movie. Like an obscene amount.The cat does not shut up.
Jennifer Garner (plays Laura Rand) is in this movie too. But something isn't right. There seemed to be hidden innuendo in some of her lines but that could just be me. Her character is supposed to be a loving wife who is forgiving but, weirdly enough, she's also friends with Tom's ex. They come over constantly in the movie to say how neglectful Tom was. She is apparently supposed to be a character in conflict with whether she loves her husband or not, but all she comes off as is a childish woman who let's everyone walk all over her. She wants to leave Tom but apparently the coma he's in makes her think twice. Laura just acts confused the whole movie and it's frustrating. She doesn't even say anything consequential. She also hates cats as well.
It's a movie about cats and everyone hates cats. What's the deal? The only person who shows affection to the cat is Tom's daughter. No one else likes cats at all. Heck, even Christopher Walken doesn't sound like he likes cats and he's the cat whisperer!
There is still so much to talk about. There are side characters and stories that are just so badly written and acted and placed that I don't think even kids would like it. There was so much talk about business and legal action that it really slows down the movie. And that may be a weird thing to say since the studio tries to put Tom-cat (get the pun!? I'm funnier than the movie!) in literally almost every other scene, but it takes Tom almost a third of the movie to get turned into a cat. It's also trying to set so many plot lines in motion that it forgets it's a cat movie. It's a cat movie! Just be simple cat fun, damn you!
Oh man, and the funny part is that Tom Rand is almost a parallel to Donald Trump. I'm not trying to be too political but the similarities are there. Kevin plays a billionaire, he has a failed airline, he's super egotistical and he likes to fire entire divisions of his company. He has what seems to be a trophy wife and his family seems to unconditionally love him for crying out loud oh god we're supposed to ROOT for this character help me pleaaaaasee....
The last disturbing thing I took away from this movie was the whole concept of being turned into a cat. Apparently it is a ritual due to karma. From what I understood, bad people are turned into cats in order to learn who they truly are and to learn a bit about humility. It's like a Christmas Carol but instead of freaky ghosts showing you the way, you just grow fur and walk on all fours. My problem with the movie is what it alludes to: Does the movie mean to say that cats are all just bad people transmuted into cats? Are all people in comas secretly cats just trying to find a way back to their bodies? That's some weird transcendental stuff right there.
In the movie, Tom Rand learns that sacrifice is the real aspect of love. In order to really love, you must sacrifice. He does this by trying to protect his son, who technically didn't commit suicide. His son was parachuting off the building, but Tom (as a cat) did not have a parachute. His selfless (and yet sadly, useless) sacrifice was enough to get him back to his own body.
Nine Lives is no way a kids movie. It has too many heavy themes. I mean I already mentioned comas, suicide, the amount of business in this movie, heck they even talk about technical aspects of architecture! There is even a point in the movie where SiC tries to convince Rebecca Rand to pull the plug. I mean what the hell.
.
In conclusion, don't be like me. Don't write a blog. Don't do anything in journalism that would require you to see this movie. Don't think that seeing a bad movie is fun. Sometimes a movie can be painful. Sometimes they can drag on, even at ninety minutes. I have to admit though, Suicide Squad picked the best opening weekend in terms of competition.
I didn't see this movie. Parking at Heathrow Terminal 4
ReplyDeleteIs this a movie? parking luton airport
ReplyDelete