Catwoman

The first time I (Jasmyn) saw this movie, I sat through it for 30 minutes before I couldn't watch anymore. Sarah hadn't seen it at all. This was good judgment on her part.



Directed By: Pitof
Starring: Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt and Sharon Stone
Plot Summary: "Oh, right, he doesn't recognize her because she's wearing half a mask. This is some Clark Kent/Superman s***."

The movie opens with a complex, pseudo-history lesson about ancient cats and women, much like the "Bella Googles vampires" montage in Twilight. There are lots of comic-book movies that start out this way, as an homage to their own iconic images, but the difference is that the others weren't boring. These filmmakers, however, hit us over the head with the cats, as if they wrote it for an audience who had the memory of a goldfish, and would periodically forget that the movie was about CATwoman. It became cheesy, when it should have been simple and stirring, like this:



(This is one of my favorite movie openings OF ALL TIME.)

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"What's with the weird, ethereal Troy music? It's a combo of Troy music and stripper music."
--"This camera work is bothering me! I'm getting dizzy!"
--"Oh god, there are STROBES!"
--"The laws of physics have just been defied."
--"This is exactly how John Wilkes Booth broke his leg."

"How did they make her look homely?! She's HALLE BERRY!"
"It's just the wardrobe, though, because her face is f***ing up any 'homely' plans they had."

Halle Berry is a beautiful, Oscar-winning actress. That being said, there is no excuse -- we repeat, NO EXCUSE -- for her acting in this movie. She was fine when she was timid, innocent Patience Phillips (a terrible name, considering the last Catwoman's name was Selina Kyle). When Patience became Catwoman, Halle went overboard. She was twitchy and awkward, kind of the way Anne Hathaway (another Oscar-nominee) decided to play the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland. It made us think, "What happened? Why are you doing this?" So, Michelle Pfeiffer still reigns in this role. Plus, she was sexier in her costume, covered head-to-toe, than Halle was, half-naked in an S&M bra and leather jeans. It's worth noting, because in every incarnation of the character, Catwoman's life purpose is apparently to act like a klepto-nymphomaniac.

The Best Part: The conceit that Sharon Stone's villain character had developed invincible skin because of the age-defying, illness-inducing cosmetics she was selling to the public was pretty cool. Especially when she fell out of a skyscraper, because we could see the cracks and chips that came out of her face after she landed, like a poorly-restored statue. It was a great special-effect.

The Worst Part: Instead of fixing a craptacular script, the producers threw money at it. $100 million dollars, in fact. The movie only made $40 million. Ouch...

We give this movie a resounding F.

Sarah: "I miss good movies... I'd like to remind you that this entire project was YOUR idea."

(Catwoman poster and trailer © Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)
(Spider-Man footage © Sony Pictures Entertainment)