To cleanse the palate, I’m not asking that question in the sense of “What’s wrong with you people that you don’t find this enchanting?”

I’m asking it in the sense of “I too feel violent urges while watching this.” But I’m not sure why.

This isn’t me being grouchy or hating movie musicals. This is an Internet-wide sentiment some 24 hours after the trailer debuted.

But why?

The common explanation is that it’s the FX. They made the humans look too much like cats, or the cats look too much like humans, and plopped us squarely into the uncanny valley. I don’t know. The actors don’t look wildly different from how they would if they’d stuck to traditional costumes and facepaint. And usually the uncanny valley induces a feeling of creepiness; the repulsion one feels at something that’s animated and looks almost-but-not-quite human stems, I think, from a sense that it’s corpse-like, monstrous, unnatural. That’s not the problem here. The actors don’t look monstrous.

If anything, it’s that the whole thing seems cutesy-poo to a sickening degree.

Is that it, maybe? It’s just so darned precious that you end up wanting to punch someone? There isn’t one moment in two-plus minutes where you don’t feel like you have a mouthful of treacle. And on top of everything else, they had to stick Rebel Wilson in the middle of it and task her with some extra-cringy capital-H Hijinx.

Fight me, bro. Tell me to my face that this is a “whimsical delight.” Come at me.