#cats_the_mewvie (2020) User Reviews

Cute kitties, dumb people

[Fazikku · 5/10 · 6 February 2020]

I went for this movie because I absolutely love cats, and don't get me wrong, the cats in the flick ARE mostly cute, but what got to me are the owners.

99% of the cat owners in this movie literally just exploit their cats for money and fame. Some are clearly not experts on cat behavior and do what they think is "cool" or "cute" despite you can clearly see that the cats are not comfortable with it. Nala the cat, for example, was constantly growling during her owner's interview, apparently just because the other cat of the household was in her view. All the way, her owner was just awkwardly smiling and went after Nala after she tried to leave the room to being her back. Ugh. Another one that really pissed me off was the owner of Hercules the fat cat. Her owner literally says that she wants more followers for her cat so she can try and put him on an "expensive vet food" diet. She also says that she's afraid that people will lose interest in her cat and their ""brand"" if the cat loses too much weight. If anything, poor Hercules will lose his life if the owner does not pull her head out of her ass. The owner is as obese as her cat, so I'm sure there are ulterior motives to her half-assed attitude towards her cat's well-being. As a less evil but still annoying news, apparently the two owners of the Instagram account "cats_of_instagram" make their lives purely through other people's content. Exploiting the platform at its finest.

There were a couple of good people too, though. I have nothing but respect for Lil' Bub's (rest in peace) owner, he took care of a heavily disabled cat for many many years and gave her a good life. Also, the Kitten Lady does a far better job influencing the world of cat lovers than all of the celeb cats' owners combined. As she said, more people should actually take direct actions to make life better for homeless and rescue cats instead of just wearing merch and dressing up their own pampered kitties in ridiculous costumes.

An eye-opening document, out of all things.

More about the exploiters than the cats

[michaeldelux-18720 · 4/10 · 28 February 2020]

I had hoped the movie would be a nice collection of cat videos with some commentary. But it's mostly about the various websites that host the videos, and about the people who provide the videos. In a couple of cases, these are clearly people who cared about their kitties (like Lil Bub), but most of them are exploiting their cats as an income stream. So ultimately, this felt like a "we're in it for the money" pimp, with very little actual cat action. And much of that is clearly the kits being coerced or staged, rather than just natural behavior. Lose 6 stars for all the human screen time.

Great cat videos

[jedpb · 5/10 · 9 February 2020]

Good if you like cat videos. Absolutely fantastic if you like cat videos and people over inflating their own importance over something so trivial!

In all honesty this would be a lot easier to watch muted as the cat owners are wholly insufferable, taking about how amazing they all are.

Missing pieces

[mk_mauk · 3/10 · 25 May 2020]

How are you going to make a movie about internet cats and not talk about grumpy cat, who is arguably more famous than lil bub? And barely a mention icanhascheeseburger. The internet is not just instagram.

An interesting profile on cats' presence online

[tyboulder · 7/10 · 24 March 2020]

This is a pretty simple documentary, using mostly sit down interviews and uploaded video. But by simple I'm not knocking it... simple in this case works well, as it's sort of an essay on the history and current state of cats in pop culture through the eye of the internet. It's an upbeat, bright film, with nice people and lots of really cute cats. It's a good documentary for when you want something happy, laidback and fun.

The user reviews here really surprised me though. All but two or three called the cast of cats great, and the cast of humans awful, terrible manipulators totally "taking advantage of the system." A few people singled out Bubs' owner as the only altruistic character in the film-but if we're going to be hyper judgmental and God-like in our criticism, he also displayed some hypocrisy, virtue signaling and industry gatekeeping himself.

My point, however, is that no one profiled in this film was a monster, or an abuser of cats, or a truly evil, corporate-style machine. They all love their cats and none of them are seem to be trying to "farm" entertainment (which is something that does go on). You could argue that a couple cat Instagrammers weren't quite as "noble" as the rest-maybe the morbidly obese cat and the cat made to dress up in drag-but good grief people, of all the horrible forces at play on IG in search of profit, we're hardly looking at the worst offenders.

If someone is able to make some money on IG by making content people like with their cat, great! As the movie clearly stated, that's not easy to do. So much envy and so many holier-than-thou comments... It's as if no one rated this documentary for it merits as a film, but rated the cats at 10 and the humans at 1, averaging these two irrelevant facts (related to the movie's rating) at a 5-which is the score most reviewers gave out. If I was the director or someone who worked on the film I'd be upset by that. And if I was a cat owner, I'd be embarrassed to see the trite and worn out stereotypes about cat owners being so strongly reinforced across the board.

Anyway, it was a fun movie. If you're on the fence I'd say give it a watch. These reviews don't even represent the movie itself for the most part. I'm not even the biggest cat fan, and I liked it...so if you kitties, give it a watch.

Social media is the downfall of people

[spear88 · 1/10 · 16 February 2020]

This feature length documentary really highlights everything wrong with social media as a platform to "influence" and the people who use it to try and become rich and famous for having no actual talent. This is essentially a bunch of individuals who try and exploit social media to try and become famous from posting mostly staged pictures of their cat online. Nothing about what's going on here is natural and the people are truly awful. There were some pretty cool clips of cats being cats but 99% of this was infuriating garbage. Out of all of the awful people on display the one lady who has the overweight cat was by far the worst as what she's doing is pretty much animal cruelty just so she can try and become a social media influencer and make some serious coins from taking advantage of her pet.

Cats get a 10 the people are terrible

[mesoinvisible · 3/10 · 10 February 2020]

Many have already pointed this out-most (not all) of the people who are given speaking time are terrible& insufferable- truly. You might have to watch this in 15 minute increments it's that bad. Lots of d-bags. Prepare yourselves.

Horrible

[divanatrix-56910 · 1/10 · 18 February 2020]

Why did they make a "mewvie" trying to profit off their cats? I couldn't even make it to the part with Kitten Lady (honestly a doc about her would be wayyyy better since she actually DOES things)

Avoid.

If You're a Cat Person

[SaintedSons · 9/10 · 1 March 2020]

First of all, when you see other reviews, be prepared for the Internet "trolls" who will completely s@#t on this neat documentary. It discusses cats and their huge influence on social media. Great stories about memes, cat welfare, special needs and more. If you're a "cat person," we highly recommend it!

TERRIBLE, terrible people.

[punkyello · 1/10 · 14 March 2020]

This is just an excuse to plug some greedy's people businesses, not about cats. Terrible people talking about terrible social media marketing bs. Also don't mentioning grumpy cat???

Yawn...

[Irishchatter · 2/10 · 8 March 2020]

Even though the cats are there, it's only just showing influencers who are using their pet cats as a way to gain tons of followers on Instagram. This is the first Netflix show that made me feel very disappointed tbh....

What a Furball!

[pglore · 1/10 · 25 February 2020]

I came looking for reviews because I honestly wondered if my friends and I were the only ones who found this show to be utter dreck. I really can't say it any better than it has already been said the cats were great, but most of the people in this thing were absolutely insufferable. Most are pretentious tools.

Victor the Cat, (not an 'instacat', doesn't care to be one), was not impressed.

[facebook-835-889963 · 5/10 · 16 February 2020]

Cats - Awesome. .

Cats on the Internet - Awesome. .

People intentionally pimping their cats in an attempt at stardom - mega meh.

Fun movie, too long

[Calicodreamin · 5/10 · 22 March 2020]

A cute little documentary about the rise of internet cats and followers love for cat content. After a while though it starts to get repetitive. But I love cats so I stuck with it.

An informing and entertaining film

[orange_x_tiger · 8/10 · 4 March 2020]

This documentary sets out what a doc is meant to do- entertain and inform. I learned quite a lot about the inner workings of cats on social media and the people chasing that absurd lifestyle. I enjoyed the range of information presented as well as the feel and tone of film. The filmmaking is not totally unbiased, but I never felt like the documentary wanted me to like or dislike and of the owners. What it did do was inform me on cat well-being and responsible ownership enough to make my own conclusions about each pet owner. The film is bright and light which was pleasant to watch and celebrate the love that is cats. If you are interested in cats, social media, interesting types of businesses, or information in general I would give it a watch.

Her voice!

[rachelsprich · 5/10 · 19 February 2020]

The lady who is half of the cats_of_instagram page has the worst monotone voice I have ever heard and I had to skip each part where she was on the screen.