"Where Movie Critics Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine"
Subscribe To Weekly Newsletter!

CATWOMAN
by Peter Sobczynski

July 23, 2004

(out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Starring: Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone, Lambert Wilson, Frances Conroy. Directed by: Jean-Christophe 'Pitof' Comar. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for action violence and some sensuality. Distributor: Warner Brothers

"Catwoman" is not the lousiest movie ever made or even the lousiest film of the summer - and that may actually be the worst thing about it. With all of the bad advanced word, the dreadful trailers and the sight of a Catwoman outfit that appeared to have been purchased used from a Vivid Video shoot, there was some hope that this would be one of those legendary bombs that is so divorced from coherence or sanity that one just sits there stupefied and slack-jawed wondering how in the hell something that dreadful could have actually been produced and released by sentient human beings. To make a film like that takes a certain grand ambition, however foolhardy and misguided it might be, and that is precisely what "Catwoman" lacks. (Fret not, connoisseurs of crap-such a movie is coming around the pike in a couple of weeks and trust me, it is a doozy.) It is just, for the most part, another run-of-the-mill craptacular destined to be forgotten in a couple of weeks-though, to be fair, it may well go down as the first comic-book movie to get inspiration for its fight choreography from the action scenes in "Showgirls".

This is kind of a shame because a lot of people out there have been waiting for a film to feature Catwoman-the sexy anti-hero who was one of Batman’s more memorable foes-especially after the hilariously kinky turn by Michelle Pfeiffer (in what is still one of her best performances) in Tim Burton’s criminally underrated "Batman Returns". There was talk that Pfeiffer and Burton were going to do a spin-off film and then Ashley Judd was linked to it for a long time. A pretty amusing script by Daniel Waters (who wrote "Batman Returns" and "Heathers") made the rounds and was eventually scrapped. Any of those above combinations might have made for an intriguing movie-certainly a better one than we have been given, which suggests nothing more than what "The Crow" might have been like if it had been made by Camille Paglia. I take that back. This is more like what "The Crow: City of Angels" would have been like if it had been made by Camille Paglia.

In this new whack at the character, Halle Berry stars as Patience Philips, a meek doormat who, despite her alleged artistic genius, slaves away creating ad copy for the Hedare Beauty cosmetic company, an evil conglomerate (imagine a cross between Max Factor and Haliburton) run by the monstrous George Hedare (Lambert Wilson) and his estranged supermodel wife, Laurel (Sharon Stone), who is none too happy about being replaced as the face of the company for her husband’s latest chippie. Days away from launching their latest product, a beauty cream that supposedly reverses the aging process, it is discovered that the cosmetic has a couple of minor side effects; it causes crippling headaches and fainting spells, it is instantly addictive and if users stop applying it, it causes their faces to quickly decay. Patience inadvertently discovers these shocking facts and, in a moment that comes as an uncomfortably apt metaphor for the entire experience, she is drowned by the bad guys in a vat of toxic waste and flushed out into the river.

Inexplicably, her body washes up on some convenient inlet and her body is surrounded by an army of stray cats. Under normal circumstances, the results would be inevitable; the cats would devour her flesh, desecrate her skeleton and use her eyes for chew-toys. (Forgive my anti-cat bias-I recognize it and I am trying to work through it.) However, these are special cats and somehow recognize that Patience is a kindred spirit and use their creepy, evil and satanic powers (I said I’m trying!) to bring her back to life. No problem with that but, unlike the other Catwoman incarnations that I can recall (and I could be wrong), this revival not only brings Patience back but has somehow infused her with all of the abilities of a cat. No joke-Patience starts moving and acting like a cat; she hisses at dogs, she eats cans of tuna by the caseful and guzzles cream, she hops up on all of her furniture and goes nutty when someone throws a ball of catnip in her direction. (Disappointingly, we never learn what happens when she needs to go to the bathroom.)

Reborn, Patience decides to avenge her death and get to the bottom of why she was killed in the first place. To this end, she dons a creatively shredded leather outfit, develops a sudden proficiency with a bullwhip (which doesn’t make that much sense seeing as how cats lack the opposable thumbs required to wield such a thing) and goes off to kick some ass-after taking time out to break into a jewelry store to steal a gaudy necklace as an accessory. (Our heroine, ladies and gentlemen.) Eventually, Catwoman becomes the suspect in a series of murders of people connected to the cosmetics company and this brings hunky-yet-idiotic cop Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt) into the picture. He is dating Patience (they meet cute when she is trying to save a cat from a ledge and he thinks she is trying to commit suicide) and yet seems unable to recognize her face behind a tiny eye mask-perhaps because his gaze is aimed about 18 inches further south. And yes, I am fully aware that I made the exact same observation last week regarding "A Cinderella Story"-blame Warner Brothers, who decided to use the same plot device in their films for two consecutive weeks.

Although the prospect of seeing Halle Berry acting like a cat might sound goofy enough to launch "Catwoman" into bad-movie Nirvana, the most shocking thing about the film is how ordinarily bad it is. Instead of veering into outright insanity, director Pitof (apparently this generation’s Tarsem) and the gang of writers come up with the same old stupidities; incoherent action scenes, evil villains whose diabolical plans make absolutely no sense and, in the character of Patience’s co-worker played by Alex Borstein, the single most annoying sidekick character since Rob Schneider appeared in "Judge Dredd". To be fair, there are a few moments that flirt with lunacy. Consider the one-on-one basketball game between Berry and Bratt where her influence appears to be less feline and more flubber. Consider the notion of a hot nightclub being located in the exact same building complex as a top-secret chemical lab. Consider the sight of Patience attempting to discover the secret behind her powers by going to Google and typing in "cats.women".

Much of this could have been forgiven, I suppose, if the character had been at all compelling-that is not the case here and most of the blame, I fear, lies squarely on Berry’s shoulders. As Patience, she is simply unbelievable-in another move similar to "A Cinderella Story", she is supposed to be a shy, mousy type yet never bothers to attempt to look like anything other than a glamorous movie star. As Catwoman, she is worse. She isn’t tough, she isn’t funny and, although attractive enough, she isn’t sexy-three requirements that would seem to be necessary for anyone playing the part of Catwoman. Michelle Pfeiffer had all of these qualities in spades-so much so that a mere still photo of her that is briefly glimpsed, in the lone nod paid by the film to its origins, is arguably the highlight of the film-but Berry tries so hard to prove to everyone that she is hot stuff that the opposite effect occurs. For all of her efforts, this Catwoman feels as if she has been spayed-a move that will please Bob Barker and precious few others.

More disappointing than Berry, however, is Sharon Stone, who is someone that you would think would be perfectly at home playing a sneering, sexy supervillian. Rather than being diabolical, however, she comes across as merely sad and slightly pathetic. Instead of camping things up, perhaps the only way that she could have saved the film, she spends most of her time under the apparent delusion that she is in a serious, thoughtful film. She isn’t helped by a subplot that attempts to milk pathos from her character’s situation of being a former sex bomb who is being cruelly cast aside for the younger, hotter models. This is no doubt meant to be read as a parallel to Stone real-life career slide but she isn’t helped in the slightest by the almost astonishingly cruel way that Pitof has visualized her-she looks horrible and sports what may be the least flattering hairstyle ever seen on an actress in a movie that did not have the word "Chainsaw" in the title.

As I said before, people have been waiting for years for a "Catwoman" movie; after this, they may still be waiting. Lacking wit, visual flair (which is surprising considering that Pitof was previously a visual artist who contributed to such dazzlers as "Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children") or any sort of kinky kick (the final catfight between Berry and Stone, for all of its huffing and puffing, will satisfy only the most easy-to-please fetishists), it just lies there on the screen like a drowsy cat on a sofa. However, if you see only one movie this summer in which a fabulous-looking babe turns into a cat and a dopey boyfriend unknowingly engages in bestiality, make it a rental of the Nastassja Kinski version of "Cat People".

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
All rights reserved.
Used with permission
Peter's Archives

While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.