I suppose it doesn't take much to get a green light in Hollywood these days. Catwoman wouldn't have been particularly difficult to pitch: Halle Berry crammed into a leather bodysuit, kicks ass, saves world. The End. Oh and she is handy with a whip. And has a bitch fight with Sharon Stone. Did I mention the leather bodysuit? Good - that ought to do it.
I guess some wag in the pre-production meetings may have tentatively ventured some concerns about lack of any plot or characterisation, but he was evidently shouted down and told not to be such a worrywart.
Much of the criticism levelled at this film is unhelpful and frankly misjudged. If you want to be intellectually stimulated go and watch Kubrick or Truffaut or, better still, read a book. This is a no-brainer, an event movie aimed at the school holiday market with tie-in video game potential. Anyway there is actually a fair bit of mileage in the idea behind Catwoman: The comic book traditionally transfers well onto the silver screen Spiderman 2 opened recently to rave reviews, and the Batman franchise from which the character is taken has enjoyed immense critical and commercial success (the dreadful fourth installment Batman and Robin aside). Add to that Berry's considerable Box Office clout and you have what is surely a recipe for success.
Unfortunately though, even the best ideas will flounder if they are not fully thought through. Berry may be a good, nay Oscar-winning actress better, certainly, than the catsuit's previous incumbent, Michelle Pfeiffer, and light years ahead of Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar who rubbed up against the Dark Knight in the original sixties Batman TV show but she cannot salvage anything from this.
She plays Patience Philips, a lonely, browbeaten graphic designer at a large cosmetics firm run by slick businessman George Hedare (Lambert Wilson) and his glamorous wife Laurel (Sharon Stone). After unwittingly stumbling upon a dastardly plot to thrust an anti-ageing product with hideous side effects on an unsuspecting public, Patience is bumped off only to be reanimated by a bunch of mystical moggies. Invigorated with feline zest, she seeks her revenge and falls for hunky cop Tom (Benjamin Bratt) en route. Cue lots of computer animated leaping about and plenty of catty anthropomorphism including Berry scoffing down tuna by the tinful, hissing at dogs and the obligatory milk moustache scene. Interestingly, Patience's alter ego is also surprisingly adept at basketball and kickboxing not skills you would traditionally associate with the domestic pussycat.
Berry, as always, looks terrific, but she still falls someway short of Pfieffer's seminal Catwoman. The character in Tim Burton's Batman Returns is part of a wider ensemble. Fewer scenes enable Pfeiffer to cloak her Catwoman in ambiguity and maximise her impact most memorably when she backflips effortlessly across a deserted lot, pauses and miaows sardonically as a massive building explodes behind her. It helps that she is directed by Burton, the master of the dark, acerbic fairy tale. Berry can count herself unfortunate that her movie is helmed by the curiously monikered Pitof, a Frenchman who seems to have arrived from nowhere (and, on this evidence, will be scuttling back there before too long).
Still, Pitof has obviously at least watched Batman Returns, for his movie simply lifts Catwoman's plot line out, dumbs it down and sets it to a pumping soundtrack. There is no heart, no ingenuity and there sure as hell isn't any depth. We learn nothing of Patience's past or why she has been selected to be blessed with superpowers. The villains of the piece are ludicrously unimpressive you can imagine them being laughed out of the Global Confederation of Comic Book Baddies for sheer lack of imagination: 'So, what fiendish plans for world domination have you come up with? A super virus? Nuclear War, maybe?' 'Er, no, but we have developed a face cream that will give people a nasty rash '
Wilson is a tired, identikit evil genius, and Sharon Stone is more of a loony Bridgett Neilson clone than an exotic femme fatale. Neither can touch the sinister malevolence of Christopher Walken's Max Shreck or Danny DeVito's Penguin. Their plot is also so pathetic that Catwoman needn't have bothered with a dangerous, elaborate showdown to bring them to justice simply reporting them to Watchdog would probably have done the trick.
Catwoman certainly isn't the car crash it could have been. Bratt's cop is pretty bland, but his chemistry with Berry is OK, and the computer animation whilst over the top makes for a slick cartoon landscape that is appropriate for a film like this. And, of course, if you can stomach the dizzying camera angles and stodgy dialogue, the pay-off is Halle Berry clad in leather and wiggling delectably. I would suggest that many red-blooded cinema-goers might well consider that a fair trade.
5/10
I guess some wag in the pre-production meetings may have tentatively ventured some concerns about lack of any plot or characterisation, but he was evidently shouted down and told not to be such a worrywart.
Much of the criticism levelled at this film is unhelpful and frankly misjudged. If you want to be intellectually stimulated go and watch Kubrick or Truffaut or, better still, read a book. This is a no-brainer, an event movie aimed at the school holiday market with tie-in video game potential. Anyway there is actually a fair bit of mileage in the idea behind Catwoman: The comic book traditionally transfers well onto the silver screen Spiderman 2 opened recently to rave reviews, and the Batman franchise from which the character is taken has enjoyed immense critical and commercial success (the dreadful fourth installment Batman and Robin aside). Add to that Berry's considerable Box Office clout and you have what is surely a recipe for success.
Unfortunately though, even the best ideas will flounder if they are not fully thought through. Berry may be a good, nay Oscar-winning actress better, certainly, than the catsuit's previous incumbent, Michelle Pfeiffer, and light years ahead of Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar who rubbed up against the Dark Knight in the original sixties Batman TV show but she cannot salvage anything from this.
She plays Patience Philips, a lonely, browbeaten graphic designer at a large cosmetics firm run by slick businessman George Hedare (Lambert Wilson) and his glamorous wife Laurel (Sharon Stone). After unwittingly stumbling upon a dastardly plot to thrust an anti-ageing product with hideous side effects on an unsuspecting public, Patience is bumped off only to be reanimated by a bunch of mystical moggies. Invigorated with feline zest, she seeks her revenge and falls for hunky cop Tom (Benjamin Bratt) en route. Cue lots of computer animated leaping about and plenty of catty anthropomorphism including Berry scoffing down tuna by the tinful, hissing at dogs and the obligatory milk moustache scene. Interestingly, Patience's alter ego is also surprisingly adept at basketball and kickboxing not skills you would traditionally associate with the domestic pussycat.
Berry, as always, looks terrific, but she still falls someway short of Pfieffer's seminal Catwoman. The character in Tim Burton's Batman Returns is part of a wider ensemble. Fewer scenes enable Pfeiffer to cloak her Catwoman in ambiguity and maximise her impact most memorably when she backflips effortlessly across a deserted lot, pauses and miaows sardonically as a massive building explodes behind her. It helps that she is directed by Burton, the master of the dark, acerbic fairy tale. Berry can count herself unfortunate that her movie is helmed by the curiously monikered Pitof, a Frenchman who seems to have arrived from nowhere (and, on this evidence, will be scuttling back there before too long).
Still, Pitof has obviously at least watched Batman Returns, for his movie simply lifts Catwoman's plot line out, dumbs it down and sets it to a pumping soundtrack. There is no heart, no ingenuity and there sure as hell isn't any depth. We learn nothing of Patience's past or why she has been selected to be blessed with superpowers. The villains of the piece are ludicrously unimpressive you can imagine them being laughed out of the Global Confederation of Comic Book Baddies for sheer lack of imagination: 'So, what fiendish plans for world domination have you come up with? A super virus? Nuclear War, maybe?' 'Er, no, but we have developed a face cream that will give people a nasty rash '
Wilson is a tired, identikit evil genius, and Sharon Stone is more of a loony Bridgett Neilson clone than an exotic femme fatale. Neither can touch the sinister malevolence of Christopher Walken's Max Shreck or Danny DeVito's Penguin. Their plot is also so pathetic that Catwoman needn't have bothered with a dangerous, elaborate showdown to bring them to justice simply reporting them to Watchdog would probably have done the trick.
Catwoman certainly isn't the car crash it could have been. Bratt's cop is pretty bland, but his chemistry with Berry is OK, and the computer animation whilst over the top makes for a slick cartoon landscape that is appropriate for a film like this. And, of course, if you can stomach the dizzying camera angles and stodgy dialogue, the pay-off is Halle Berry clad in leather and wiggling delectably. I would suggest that many red-blooded cinema-goers might well consider that a fair trade.
5/10