SYNOPSIS

Patience Philips is dead – and more alive than ever.  Murdered after she learns the secret behind a cosmetic firm’s anti-aging cream, she’s revived and empowered by mystical felines.  Now she’s on the slinky prowl for adventure and revenge.  She’s Catwoman.

CRITIQUE

A Catwoman film has been talked about for years, ever since Michelle Pfeiffer brought the character to brilliant life in Batman Returns in 1992.  Pfeiffer was originally set to reprise the role, then there were rumors that Ashley Judd was going to play the part.  The project floundered, languishing for years on the Warner Brothers shelf, until now.  Rather than do justice to the character by keeping it true to its comic book roots, the decision was made along the way to change just about everything: the character’s name (from Selina Kyle to the ridiculous Patience Philips), the suit, giving the character superhuman abilities, and just about everything else.  The comic-to-screen changes are trivial.  If one has to be familiar with the source material in order for the film to make any sense, the film fails.  No, Catwoman fails for many other reasons.

Patience Philips is a meek design artist for a big cosmetics firm, Hedare Beauty, run by the tyrannical Georges Hedare (Lambert Wilson), and his wife, the face of Hedare, Laurel (Sharon Stone).  One night, while delivering some last minute designs, Patience stumbles upon the film’s lame, hackneyed plot: the hot new Hedare product, a cream that reverses aging has deadly side effects.  Chased by some Hedare lackeys, Patience falls out of a drainpipe to her death.  Luckily for her, a group of stray cats swarm in and resurrect her.  In addition to restoring her life, the cats also imbue Patience with some phenomenal abilities: superior fighting skills, she can ride a motorcycle like she was born to… and she plays a mean game of hoops.  In one of the more ridiculous filler scenes in the film (of which there are many), Patience and her love interest, city cop Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt), take each other on in a highly sexual game of basketball.  Patience dominates, dribbling all over the court, bouncing off walls, and backing it up all over Lone, all in full few of the young children playing near by.

The feeling of dread around this film began in 2003, when pictures of Halle in the cat suit popped up on the Web.  From that moment, one could almost hear the collective groan going out from comic buffs and casual viewers alike.  The suit is trashy, less sensual than full out S&M, built show off as much of Halle as possible.  She even has a whip, which she flashes with great proficiency, but never really uses for anything.  Halle is gorgeous, but showing off how good she looks seems to be the only point of the suit.  It just doesn’t work, as though they were trying too hard.

In a big comic book adaptation like this, you would think that at the very least you would be able to expect some decent special effects, some cool CGI, especially when the man directing the film created the visual effects for such films as Alien: Resurrection and The Messenger.  Well, you would be wrong.  The effects in this film are not just bad.  They are laughable.  They do not blend well with the rest of the film, and the transition from live action to CGI is so obvious that it takes the viewer out of the movie, as though Real Halle was replaced by Playstation Halle for all the big scenes.  There is also too much CGI though maybe it just seems that way because it is so bad.  Everything from city establishing shots to some of the cats are computer generated.  It all feels overused, directorial laziness.

I hate to be simplistic, but so much of Catwoman is so unbelievably dumb, so jaw-droppingly stupid, that it is hard to imagine that someone wrote it and showed it to someone else, who said, “Yes!  We’re going to shoot this!”  Everything from the painfully two dimensional characters to the cheap, faux-feminist jabs the film takes (“I’m a woman.  I’m used to doing all kinds of things I don’t want to do.”), to the story that feels made up as it went along, there is little redeeming about this turkey.  Even the pacing is horrible.  Catwoman is of about average length, but it feels so much longer.  The direction, by a one-named Frenchman called Pitof (a nickname, of course, but who could blame him for not wanting his real name on this catastrophe) is indescribably inept.  He does not seem to have the slightest idea how to capture anything human, and everything ends up looking like a cliched music video.

If there is anything about this film that makes it fun to watch, it is the camp value.  It is possible to have fun with this movie if you lower your expectations.  No, rather, if you let your expectations go all together, there is something to laugh at here.  The problem is that the film takes itself way too seriously.  If they would have played up the camp even more, they might have had something.  (Consider the original Batman, made in 1966.  That film wore its camp sensibilities like a badge of honor, and it is all the more classic because of that.)  The basketball scene is hilarious, as is every scene with Halle in her cat suit (that mask!).  Only Sharon Stone, as the evil Laurel, seems to realize what the filmmakers had on their hands, and she plays the silliness in every scene she is in.  Stone is fun to watch, if only because behind the act she seems to be laughing at the material.

Catwoman is bad in just about every way a film can be.  One can picture Michelle Pfeiffer and the other actresses who have been considered for the role breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that the project passed them by.  The film is not helped by the fact that Halle’s performance is nowhere near the same universe as Pfeiffer’s; Ms. Berry seems horribly miscast.  While Spiderman 2 showed how a comic book film can be great, Catwoman provides us with a blueprint of how not to make a film.  Catwoman leaves the door open for a sequel, which, if there is a god, we’ll never see.

THE VIDEO

Catwoman is presented in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio.  The transfer is quite good, and all the color levels come through sharply.  The black levels are good, and the overall picture is crisp.

THE AUDIO

This DVD offers English and French tracks, both presented in Dolby Digital 5.1.  The presentation is solid, and all the effects come through sharply.  All channels come through well, and the sound effects are crisp.  It’s funny that a film this bad gets a technical presentation that is this good.

THE EXTRAS

The Many Faces of Catwoman: A history of the character, from her first appearance in DC Comics up to this film.  DC executives, writers and artists talk about the evolution and significance of the character.  We also hear from the women who have breathed life into Catwoman over the years: Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, Eartha Kitt, Adrienne Barbeau, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Halle Berry.

Behind-the-Scenes Documentary: Talks about recreating the character, building the suit, and what they were trying to accomplish with this film.

Additional Scenes: Five deleted scenes and alternate cuts, including an alternate ending.

Theatrical Trailer: The original theatrical trailer.

The bonus material on this disc is more interesting than the film itself, particularly the “Many Faces” featurette, and probably the only point of interest here.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Catwoman is a mess from the ground up.  The few instances of campy fun are far outweighed by the film’s greater overall failings.  The bonus material is interesting in spite of the film, but not so much so that they would make this DVD worth picking up.  Lovers of bad movies might be interested in this, but otherwise, don’t bother.