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Back Shelf Beauties
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Catwoman She can do everything a Spider-Man can, but worse. Much, much, much worse. Come to think of it, comparing Catwoman to Spider-Man is insulting to Spider-Man. Maybe Catwoman is more like Manimal as the movie drives past campy and directly into trashy. Halle Berry stars as Patience Phillips - a meek and mild artist who designs advertising campaigns for an evil cosmetics corporation. She is spearheading the art department's current efforts on their latest product, Beau-Line - a face cream that wipes away the years and wrinkles. Of course, it's an EVIL cosmetics corporation, so Patience is shocked (but we're not) to discover Beau-Line does more damage than good to the customers. When she accidentally finds out the company's horrible secret, some hired goons kill Patience to keep the truth under wraps, even if it means millions of women could be harmed. As her body washes ashore, a mysterious, mystical cat climbs on top of Patience's lifeless body, breathes on her (or in her mouth, I was laughing too hard to tell), and transforms the meek and mild gal into the powerful, assertive, tough gal who rides a motorcycle - Catwoman (I'd say you can't make up something that dumb, but someone obviously did). Will Catwoman get revenge, kill the people who murdered her and save the female population from evil makeup? It's hard not to compare this movie to the Spider-Man films, but the story, special effects, action scenes and characters scream out Catwoman wants to be just like Spider-Man. However, everything about Catwoman is inferior to Spider-Man and just about every action hero movie I have ever seen. As evidenced by the ridiculous "creation of Catwoman" scene, simplistic and formulaic establishment of the bad guys, ill-advised meaningless comic relief from Alex Borstein, and dreadful dialogue exchanges between Catwoman and her evil nemesis, Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone), writers John Brancato, Michael Ferris and John Rogers, along with director Pitof (if the director goes by one name, you know the movie has a 90-10 chance of stinking), aren't the least bit interested in creating a good character. Instead, they rush to get Halle into the ripped leather outfit, complete with whip, so she can saunter around with her hips wiggling from one side of the screen to the other. That's just the start of the madness. I feel sorry for poor Halle Berry. She is reduced to cartoonish levels as Pitof forces her to act like a cat, but not in the sexy way. Catwoman's highlights feature the most inane and ridiculous cat behaviors you can imagine like forcing the character to devour cans of tuna fish, stare longingly at a fish while in a restaurant, grab cat nip like it was crack and suggestively lick her lips after downing a glass of milk. Subtlety is tossed out the window and replaced with over the top, broadly drawn action that is more laughable than compelling. Cute, nuanced cat-like behavior would have been funny for the audience, but this stuff is shoved in our face as if we couldn't figure it out if it wasn't so obvious. Even worse, no one gave the memo to Sharon Stone, who acts like she can barely keep her eyes open as she portrays the conniving wife of the cosmetics company founder. So, thanks to dreadful directing from Pitof, Berry is chewing up the scenery as if she was in a B-movie camp classic, and Stone is walking around like a corpse. Pitof doesn't excel at capturing the action scenes either. Editor Sylvie Landra and Pitof over-edit every action scene, possibly to cover up the lack of Berry physically performing the moves, but, also to capture the MTV style that ruins most movies today. Blinding, blurry, non-linear action makes it impossible to follow the fight scenes, and shots of Catwoman leaping from building to building or running around the city pale in comparison to Spider-Man 2's smooth shots of Spider-Man swinging, jumping, and running. In Spider-Man 2, you can tell it's New York City, and identify buildings, while still getting blown away by the action. In Catwoman, the computer generated character running cat-like around the city and the ceiling (yes, she runs around the ceiling) is distracting due to its phoniness. I was so taken aback by the stupid action, it's all I could focus on. Catwoman the movie is a dog. ½ Waffle (out of 4) Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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