Tom Hooper directed another musical - Les Misrables - which is, for the most part, disliked by critics. That, and a lot of people are still sour that The King's Speech - another movie of his - beat out The Social Network for Best Picture. Fair or not, Hooper is kind of considered somewhat of an "empty" auteur. Combine that with the fact that there a lot of people who think Cats is one of the dumbest musicals ever (there are actually some really funny takes about how stupid it is), and people are ready to dunk on this movie, sight unseen. It didn't help that the behind-the-scenes featurette takes itself way too seriously, and there is already a contingent of people convinced it's winning Best Picture. So it's a bit like Avatar in that the haters don't understand how something so lame and weird and self-serious - from their perspective - is so popular. So all these elements make for this mocking environment, which I'm kind of going along with because it's fun. Who knows, though, maybe the CGI is amazing and they've amended the story enough that it actually is good. It's got a hell of a cast, so I guess anything is possible. But if you know anything about the original musical itself, it's pretty ridiculous. Let me see if I can find this Twitter thread on it I read a while back, which is hilarious...