Have you heard that Kevin Spacey and Christopher Walken, two powerhouses of cinema, are collaborating for a new feature? Sounds pretty exciting. So what’s it all about? Well, basically there’s this guy right, and he plays a self-serving imbecile who is turned into a cat and has to convince some creepy pet store owner that he’s changed his ways to return back to human form. Oh.
Spacey plays Tom Brand, a narcissistic, affluent entrepreneur who is set to unveil North America’s tallest building; his new office. Caught up with the endeavour, and in particular trying to outdo a Chicago based skyscraper vying for the same status, he absentmindedly forgets his daughter’s birthday, and not for the first time either. So in a quick bid to appease the young Rebecca (Malina Weissman), and her mother Lara (Jennifer Garner), he drops into a pet store down a hidden alley, to reluctantly buy her the cat she’s always wanted.
When confronted by the eccentric owner Felix Perkins (Walken), the businessman is a little perturbed, and when caught up in an incident on his way home which consigns him to a coma, when he finally wakes up he’s no longer Tom Brand – instead now in the body of the new cat he had just purchased. The instructions from Perkins remain simple, he must discover what matters most in his life and confront his egotistical sensibilities, otherwise he’s never going to wake up from that coma, and instead be pissing in a litter tray for the rest of his short life.
Barry Sonnenfeld’s film sets itself up well, with a heavily flawed protagonist that Spacey plays with a certain playful edge, presenting him as a pantomime villain of sorts. But then he turns into a cat, and though that remains the crux of the narrative, it’s when the film begins to lose its way, particularly with the contrived quips that we hear Spacey contribute from thereon, all about the hardships of being turned into a furry feline. As a concept, however, the film thrives on a perennial notion of having an antihero realising he’s being a bit of a dick, and having to turn his life around – in this instance using an out-of-body experience to realise how flawed he was as a person, in a similar vein to Dickens’ famous creation of Scrooge, in A Christmas Carol.
But the film bears more similarities to Adam Sandler’s Click, also about a selfish individual going to an isolated store, purchasing something from a whimsical, elusive shopkeeper played by Christopher Walken, only for supernatural occurrences to take place and for him to watch his own life play out in front of him, realising he needs to change his ways. It’s remarkably similar, and Walken effectively plays the exact same role in both movies, though in his defence, it’s one he does pretty damn well.
