Catwoman
Starring Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone
Written by John D. Brancato, Michael Ferris, John Rogers
Directed by Pitof


There is a lesson to be learned from watching Catwoman and the lesson is: Batman should be the only character from Gotham City to be allowed to have their own feature length film. Catwoman stinks. Plain and simple. Even with a handful of screenwriters and story consultants and a visual effects friendly director at the helm -- nothing. Which proves once again that Hollywood should recognize that less is always more when it comes to good filmmaking.

Catwoman is only a strong character when she is put next to Batman. What we get with the Catwoman film is a new interpretation of the character (she is not Selina Kyle, the name of the real Catwoman) where Catwoman is suppose to be a timid graphic designer named Patience Phillips at an ad agency in charge of promoting a new line of woman’s facial cream. Working late one night she finds out that the new cream they are launching has deathly side effects and she in turn suffers a deathly fate for discovering it. But hold on folks -- here come the cats! After she dies, Patience Philips is resurrected by some ancient and mystical Egyptian feline (Egyptians loved their cats, look it up) and then basically loses her inhibitions and gains a lot of catlike powers. She decides to take revenge on all those responsible for her death and while on the way to doing that she helps herself to some expensive jewels. Oh and she also plays sexy with a detective (Benjamin Bratt) that she has a thing for.

Watching Halle Berry and Sharon Stone wrestle each other in any other film I am sure would be an entertaining sight, but this film can’t even get that right. This film is so messed. Pitof’s idea of direction is to put everything in close-up and have Catwoman jump around like Spider-Man. That is basically the whole film. It made a decent video game, but a decent film it is not. The story and characters lack complete focus (I now have a headache from trying to explain the plot in the previous paragraph) and the visual effects are not even that great to make up for it. Catwoman is like one of those stray cats you find in a dingy back alley -- it is full of disease and you should stay as far away from it as possible.


THE RUNDOWN:

The Good: There is nothing good about this film.

The Bad: Where do I start...

The Law: Stay far, far, far, far away from this film!