Tom Brand is a multimillionaire tycoon animated by huge ambitions: the latest is the construction of the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan, which must at all costs overcome the rival Chicago. In his delirium of omnipotence Tom does not realize the dedication to him and to his company, the first bed son David, nor did he have time to attend Rebecca, the girl born from the second marriage with the patient Lara. When you realize you have forgotten to buy a gift for the eleventh birthday of Rebecca, Tom asks the child what he wants, and unfortunately she responds: “A cat”. Although you hate cats, Tom agrees for a quiet life, but just purchased the hairy Mister Fuzzypants by the enigmatic owner of the animals Felix Perkind shop, the tycoon has a terrible accident that throws his body into a deep coma. The spirit Tom, however, is passed within Mister Fuzzypants, who by that time will just try to be recognized by his wife and children beyond the feline form.
Produced by French film company EuropaCorp, Luc Besson, One Life to cat is a strange hybrid film that mixes the obvious inspiration Disney (the Freaky Friday or FBI – cat Operation, for instance) to leverage on at least two contemporary obsessions: one for internettiani movies as protagonists cats, mentioned in the opening credits, and that of certain men for the length of the pea as a measure of their masculinity units (the new skyscraper slogan is “mine is higher”). Given this it is understandable why Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of fine family film like The Addams Family and Men in Black (as well as the manufacturer of a delightful tribute to animation Disney, Enchanted), wanted Kevin Spacey in the role the protagonist: the irony and sarcasm of which the actor manages to infuse any interpretation should have been the trump card for this comedy with elements of social criticism.
Unfortunately Spacey is surrounded by a cast of unbearable melensaggine, beginning with the wife (Jennifer Garner) and daughter (Malina Weissman) to continue with a series of stereotypical figures that do not do justice to the (bitter bottom) truth that underlies the interpretations Spacey (for most of the film in voiceover: we can only imagine its characteristic stamp behind while valid Italian dubbing) and Christopher Walken in the role of Felix Perkind. Too bad because the initial sequences, with a throw of cartoonish parachute, were hoping for a performance that made the original craftsmanship of the media edge over the story.
As it stands, One Life to cat remains a pleasant family film that can not push on the accelerator promise of surreal comedy from the production “French auteur” and the talent Sonnenfeld and Spacey.