It’s undeniable that Tom Hooper’s big budget adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s smash hit Broadway musical Cats—itself an adaptation of The Wasteland scribe T.S Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats—was one of the most extreme cases of an audience conspiring to hate a film well before its release. By the time the first trailer was released for the film and the Internet at large got a chance to see the CGI-assisted appearance of its half-human half-feline stars, there was no coming back from the public hysteria which followed.

The actors looked horrific, with their motion-captured appearances falling face-first into the uncanny valley and being amongst the worst CGI creations in cinema history.

The resulting film was a critical and financial disaster, with a non-existent plot and awful over-acting complimenting the disastrous effects and contributing to an unsettling, distinctly wrong atmosphere for the entire enterprise.

And yet…

We’re doing it. It’s been long enough. We’re writing the first defence of Cats.

Yes, the film is a uniquely ugly, unappealing spectacle, and an undeniable waste of money. But what a spectacular waste! What a fascinating mess!

Featuring catchy numbers from the likes of James Corden and Jason Derulo, the film is absolutely a godless disaster, but for viewers aware they’ll be subject to a surreal experience like no other, the flick makes for an incredible midnight movie experience, and it's a bad trip well worth taking.