The plan was to see “The Bourne Supremacy” but Lindsay
and I began reading the seemingly endless wave of horrible reviews
for “Catwoman” and our curiosity was piqued. We should
have remembered the old adage about curiosity killing a cat and
only satisfaction bringing it back. There is no satisfaction
in this movie - and though it is laughably bad in parts - “Catwoman” is
no “Showgirls.”
Halle Berry is “Catwoman,” eventually, but at first
she is a meek little nerd named Patience. I found my patience
wearing thin during the set-up portion the film - as they made
Berry super-frumpy, gave her a boisterous best friend played
by a terribly hammy Alex Borstein (Mad TV) and an anonymous,
stereotypical gay guy friend who seemed more intrigued by Detective
Tom Lone, played by Benjamin Bratt, than Patience did. Soon,
Patience stumbles upon a plot by her employers at the cosmetic
company to cover up the dangerous side effects of their new beauty
cream. The bad guys trap her in the sewer pipes and flushes her
out to sea.
I could not help but think, “What an appropriate image
for this film.”
But then an army of cats surrounded the now-dead Patience on
an island of rocks and raw sewage. The lead cat, a Mau named
Midnight, who was fantastic and completely believable, breathed
life into the corpse and created Catwoman. You’re probably
thinking this is where the movie got good. Not so much. Oh, Berry
looked hot in the leather outfit, but the special effects were
iffy and things just got really, really corny. One part of the
film had Berry roll a ball of catnip back and forth across her
face. It was one of too few laughably bad parts of the movie
and I was the only one in the theater laughing at it.
The remainder of the movie has Berry switch between Patience
and Catwoman, as she struggles with her identity and tries to
figure out who killed her and why. This leads her to Sharon Stone,
who plays the villainess of this movie and is probably looking
at a long hiatus before Quentin Tarantino throws a patch over
her eye and resurrects her career somewhere down the line. Stone
is too flat to be a villain you really care about Catwoman thwarting
- though she too has one great laugher of a line. Describing
how she has gone from the company’s top model to a neglected
trophy wife of the company’s president, Stone says, “I
turned 40 and they threw me away.” I was waiting for her
to begin singing the song “Memory” from “Cats.”
This was just a bad movie, from start to finish and top to bottom.
Director Pitof (no first name) is probably considered an amazing
visual auteur in some circles, but if this film is the only major
release on his reel, people may think it was the work of a horny
14-year-old with ADD. Though some of the visual effects work
and are sort of cool, others make you want to lose your popcorn
- if the horrible one on one basketball scene between Berry and
Bratt hasn’t made you do that already.
Please, don’t see this movie. I did so that you don’t
have to. At least wait for it’s move to the dollar theater
and even then you may want to wait for discount night.
