Catwoman (2004)

Based on Characters created by Bob Kane
Screenplay by John Brancanto, Micheal Ferris and John Rogers
Directed by Pitof
Starring Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt and Sharon Stone
2004,
Warner Bros.

Review by William Wright

Catwoman may very well be the worst film of its kind ever inflicted upon the American viewing public. Never before have I been so sure that Hollywood has an actual deep-rooted contempt for moviegoers. I have suspected it for quite a while, but now, I'm certain that the big studios hate us. Catwoman is so completely awful and insulting that Warner Bros. might have at least walked away from the film with a modicum of dignity by merely releasing a Frisky's cat food commercial looped for 90 minutes with the words "Here's your Catwoman Movie. Thanks for the Seven Bucks, Losers. Buy The Video Game" superimposed over it.

There's been a lot of bad buzz about Catwoman from the beginning and I'm sad to report that it is all true. Not even hardcore comic book fans will enjoy this mucous-encrusted celluloid hairball because it does not adhere even to the most rudimentary elements of any Catwoman storyline. That's right. No familiar characters or plots and most disappointingly, no linkage (except in an incredibly submoronic way) to Batman. Why would Warner Bros. alienate comic book fans (an incredibly vocal group so defensive of their collective obsession) so completely? I'd like to think that it was merely because of stupidity, but in my heart, I'm certain that it was greed. Warners cranked this garbage out quickly and on the cheap merely to ride the lucrative superhero movie gravy train. If their intention was to generate interest in their upcoming Batman Begins, their plan may very well have backfired because of this atrocious affront to cinema.

I had my doubts about this one from the beginning. Initially, I was amused that a major studio would release a trailer that was a verbatim transcript of the famous "sometimes a crow will bring back the spirits of the dead to set the wrong things right" promo for The Crow with the word "crow" replaced with "cat" (I imagine that the script for the trailer really was just the old Crow trailer script with "crow" scribbled through and "cat" written over each occurrence in purple crayon, possibly with a backwards "c"), but then I was outraged. They really didn't think we would notice. Now that the film is out, Warners is still betting that we won't notice and that we'll just line up and lap this crap out of their trough.

The story (and I use the word in the most liberal sense possible) revolves around Patience Phillips (Halle Berry), a meek and mild graphic artist stuck in an unsatisfying dead-end job for cosmetics giant Hedare which is sort of like Lancome if it were run by Nazis and staffed by extras from a failed sitcom pilot. Patience stumbles upon Hedare's plan to release an incredibly addictive, age-reversing skin cream with hideous, disfiguring side-effects on the women of America (one wonders where the FDA stands on this). Phillips is killed, literally flushed out of the Hedare factory into the sea. She washes up on shore to be revived by the worst rendered CGI house cat ever created. Shrek II's Puss'n'Boots is more believable. From this point on, it's cookie-cutter action adventure/comic book stuff. Phillips slowly discovers that she has the speed and agility of a cat and begins leading a double life as a PG-13 version of Lil' Kim. Also included in this vain attempt at plot are such familiar themes as the obligatory romance with a ruggedly handsome cop and the equally obligatory and pointless big martial arts showdown with a villain who, in this case, takes the form of Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone who seems to be the only one even trying), wife of the head of the Hedare Company and master-mind behind the insidious corporate conspiracy. One of the most inexplicable things about the story is that very little of it is actually set down in any concrete way. Again, it seems like the filmmakers believed that no one would notice that there was no exposition or adherence to any sort of rules if they threw as much "gosh" and "wow" and the camera as possible. Most of the major plot points are merely implied or come literally out of nowhere -- which is surprising for a film created by people who apparently believe their audience is comprised of slack-jawed morons. Take for example the revelation that Hedare's beauty cream, if used continuously, has the effect of transforming skin into "living marble" and thus making Stone's character into a poorly realized super villain of convenience merely because it seems that somewhere during the last 15 minutes of the film someone realized that there was no one for Catwoman to fight.

The concept of "The Catwoman" is never satisfactorily fleshed out. All we really know is that there have been Catwomen throughout history and that there is some sort of half-assed linkage to Egyptian mysticism. All of this is "explained" through the essentially pointless character of Drina (Frances Conroy), a cross between the stereotypical "crazy cat lady" and an aging Stevie Nicks wannabe, who serves merely as a convenient mentor for Phillips/Catwoman without really providing anything useful to the film other than filling out the running time. Why are there Catwomen? What's their function and purpose? Why? Who cares? There are more plot-holes than actual plot. This is an anti-movie.

The most interesting thing about the Catwoman character was always the dichotomy of good and evil existing in one person and how that internal struggle dictated the choices she made. Although hinted at, director Pitof has chosen to play out the story's one meaningful thematic thread as a simple split personality cliche' worthy of an episode of Gilligan's Island. Even Catwoman (especially as portrayed by Julie Newmar) in the Batman TV series was a better, more textured representation of this character creating mental schism.

The performances are beyond inept. I am now certain that Berry's Oscar for Monster's Ball was a fluke. Halle Berry is incapable of delivering even the simplest of phrases with any believability. There are a few scenes (particularly those with Benjamin Bratt as love interest detective Tom Lone) where she can be seen mouthing other actors' lines along with them. Even her voice-over narration is a total misfire lacking the character that the material would seem to deserve. She sounds like a bubbly sorority girl reading aloud out of The Cat in The Hat. Her occasional lapses into Eartha Kitt's trademark purr are absolutely pathetic. But as bad as Berry is, she is the reincarnation of Bette Davis compared to Mad TV's Alex Borstein as Sally, Patience Phillips' stock, one-note horny best friend. Each time she appeared on screen, I prayed that I would be stricken blind and deaf to avoid her woefully embarrassing attempts at comic relief. The juvenile double entendre in this film would make even the most avid fan of Three's Company cringe.

For a film directed by someone who came from a special effects background, the action and camerawork is somehow both exceedingly pedestrian annoyingly complex with mundane establishing shots stretched to ridiculous extremes while scenes of real tension and violence are executed in the most predictable way. The CGI effects are perhaps the worst ever committed to a major film. Far from seamless, the digital Catwoman is stiff and obvious moving more like a spastic, crack-addicted squirrel than a graceful feline. I am still not convinced that CGI is any better or effective than well-executed stop motion animation--especially if a filmmaker can't throw George Lucas money into the FX budget.

And then, there's the costume -- a gripe among fanboys from the day the first promotional stills appeared on the Internet. The Catwoman costume is an open-toed monstrosity bred of adolescent obsession with S&M. Generally, comic book films have had a tendency to alter costumes from their newsprint counterparts to make them seem more believable and less "silly." Catwoman has taken the opposite approach and discarded a beautiful, truly sexy design from the comics and replaced it with an ugly, impractical get-up that even the least discerning five dollar whore wouldn't be caught dead in. Berry looks like she was late for a Halloween party and had to put together a costume out of whatever was lying around the back room of an adult bookstore.

For a film so entrenched in faux "girl power" posturing, Catwoman is extremely hateful in its attitude toward women. Much like the dreaded Charlie's Angels films, Catwoman dresses its adolescent jiggle show antics up as female empowerment. Perhaps most insulting is the Hedare skin cream plot which hinges on American women being vain and stupid enough to roll over for a dangerous, addictive product without question simply because it offers eternal youth. In fact this is so insulting that it seems almost unbelievable while you're watching it and the full impact of it doesn't sink in immediately.

The overall effect of Catwoman is akin to something like the Bataan Death March fused with Britney Spears' "Toxic" video. It is a loud, obnoxious, painful exercise in egomania for both Halle Berry and Pitof (incidentally, at what point did film directors become so self important that they had to have single word names ala' Cher and Madonna? I'm talking to you too, McG). As total failures go, Catwoman even fails to fail grandly. Unlike most comic book/ superhero based films, there isn't really much at stake in the story in either terms of action or character development. There is virtually no real danger in the plot. For all its summer event movie hype, everything about Catwoman is disappointing and small.

This cat has no claws. Cross its path at your own risk.