Nine Lives (2016)

Here's the thing. I don't tend to always plan this blog. Don't get me wrong, I have moments of clarity in which I remember how much easier I can make my life if I plan more than a day ahead. That means I will start to watch Christmas movies early and plan reviews for December. I will also try to schedule reviews of new releases to coincide with cinema or disc releases, when I remember. But my default approach to blogging movie reviews is to keep watching lots and lots of films and then deciding what reviews I want to write, and when I want to schedule their appearances. Which is why I didn't expect to resurrect this blog and have two Kevin Spacey movies making an appearance in the first week. Feel free to skip over this if you like, but I have already clarified my position at the start of my review for Baby Driver.

There are five writers credited here, and Barry Sonnenfeld is the director, for this very simple story of a businessman (Kevin Spacey) who is so busy with all of his dealings that he is neglecting his family (mainly his wife, played by Jennifer Garner, and daughter, played by Malina Weissman, but he has also failed to appreciate the qualities of his eldest son, Robbie Amell, who works for him). One cat-purchasing encounter with Christopher Walken later, a terrible accident, and Spacey finds himself in the body of the feline that he just bought for his daughter's birthday. Will he learn valuable lessons? Will he be able to ever return to his own body, currently comatose? Will the CGI continue to look worse than most of the scenes in Cats & Dogs (which was over fifteen years ago)?

The cast all seem strangely unembarrassed to be in this, which I have to put down to some very good performances. Spacey only has to give a vocal performance, for the most part, so gets off easier than some of the others, Garner is once again wasted in a role undeserving of the talent that can be drawn out of her, Weissman is very good in the role of the young daughter who still dotes on her absent father, and Amell is just fine. Walken has fun in his small role, Mark Consuelos is the ambitious businessman below Spacey, and there's also a cat, of course, which is cute enough when not being made to look odd with "amusing" FX work to keep it acting and reacting more like a man stuck as a cat, as opposed to a normal cat just being itself.

I could name the five writers here, but their names aren't familiar to me and this hasn't encouraged me to check out anything else they may have been, or will be, involved with. This is bland entertainment seemingly created by throwing words and scenes into a hat, drawing out pairs that are matched up, and then ensuring that all potential fun or excitement is drained from every scenario. And I have no idea how Barry Sonnenfeld ended up directing this, and how he could put this out to viewers as a final product. Everything looks incredibly cheap, making me think that most of the budget went on the cast before anyone realised how much would be needed to get everything to a minimal cinematic standard.

I wasn't expecting this to be the cat's whiskers, nobody seeing the trailer would, but I didn't expect such a stinky hairball.

3/10

For anyone deranged enough, the link to buy the movie is here - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nine-Lives-Blu-ray-Kevin-Spacey/dp/B01JS45VNY