(Let me guess: your name is Alley Cat? Oh, you’re ‘Catwoman!’ Got it.)
CAST: Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, Benjamin Bratt, Lambert Wilson, Frances Conroy, Alex Borstein, Peter Wingfield.
DIRECTOR: Pitof
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and overgrown felines with Good Girl/Bad Girl Syndrome straight ahead…
In our recent review of the supremely overrated TRUE GRIT (review # 221), we referenced what I have termed the “Meh Movie Genre“. Basically, a Meh Movie is a film that is universally adored, celebrated, and recommended - but just leaves you with one reaction: “Meh.” In other words, while these films may often be above average or even good, they simply do not warrant the adulation heaped on them. Making you wonder if the producers have implanted subliminal messages in the film reels that read, “YOU WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE, YOU WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE, YOU WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE, YOU WILL LOVE THIS MOVIE OR WE WILL FUCKING KILL YOU.” And you and a few others were the only ones that were not affected.
Now, for our latest review of the unjustly vilified Halle Berry/Sharon Stone vehicle, CATWOMAN, we will talk about another special genre that sits on the other side of the contiuum from the Meh Movie Genre. I am referring to the “Bum Rap Genre”. True to its name, this genre includes films that, for one reason or another, are labeled as utter and unmitigated disasters - but are actually not that bad. True, most of them are not classics or even good films, but they are certainly not the steaming cinematic train wrecks the zeitgeist would have you believe them to be. Some of them even manage to be interesting but misunderstood misfires. Most of these films just get caught up in the “It’s Hip To Hate This Movie” fever that often sweeps Hollywood, and before you know it they have been labeled as “Worst Movie of the Year.”
Everyone’s got a personal list of Bum Rap Movies. My own include, but are not limited to, the following: ISHTAR, HOWARD THE DUCK, HEAVEN’S GATE, DESPERATE HOURS, A KISS BEFORE DYING, SLIVER, LAST ACTION HERO, GIGLI, BASIC INSTINCT 2, WATERWORLD, and… CATWOMAN.
CATWOMAN was pretty much doomed from the start, if you ask me. But we will go into my rationale for the hypothesis in the BUT, SERIOUSLY portion of this review. For now, let’s talk about our heroine, Patience Phillips (Halle Berry). Clearly director Pitof (beware directors who go by only one name!) and his screenwriters weren’t taking the subtle route. Otherwise they would have given her another name like Slutty Phillips or Spreads ‘Em At The Drop Of A Hat Phillips - just to be contradictory and give her some “nuance“. Nope, Pitof (giggle) and his crew want us to know up front that Patience is, well, patient.
And those of you hoping this film would continue the saga of Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer, still the best Catwoman ever) should just check out of this review now and read the ones from BATMAN BEGINS and THE DARK KNIGHT instead. Selina does not exist in the universe that Pitof (ha ha) has created. This is the world of Patience.
Anyhow, it turns out that Patience is a put-upon, mousy graphic designer at Hedare Cosmetics, which is run by oily bastard George Hedare (Lambert Wilson) and his gorgeous but grumpy supermodel wife, Laurel (Sharon Stone). Now, this might seem like a fairly glamorous and chi-chi job to you and me, but for Patience it’s pretty much Chinese water torture. See, our dear Patience wants to be a “painter” and it pains her that she has work at a top cosmetics company creating ads for skin cream to pay the bills. Excuse me? I would kill to have my shit in the pages of Vogue and Elle. Perhaps our dear Patience should have been named Ungrateful Phillips.
Whatever. Very soon, Patience learns the error of her ways and has a life-changing experience. Literally. You see, after an encounter with Boss From Hell George about one of her campaigns, Patience is forced to work around the clock and re-do a lot of her ad designs. I should note that Laurel does the sisterly thing and convinces her bastard husband to give Patience one more chance. Way to look out for each other, girls.
Unfortunately, when Patience delivers the revised designs to the company offices late at night (don’t ask me why she didn’t do it earlier in the day), she interrupts a shady phone call between company scientist Dr. Slavicky (Peter Wingfield) and a mysterious somebody. The subject of their conversation? Oh, not much… just that Hedare Cosmetics’ latest anti-aging breakthrough miracle cream called Beauline is actually, in the long run, the equivalent of mixing Drano crystals in depilatory cream and smearing it all over your face. In other words: OOOOOUUUUUUCCCCCCCHHHHH!!!!!!
Slavicky suddenly becomes aware of Patience’s snooping presence and, as you can imagine, he sends his goons after her. This leads to a chase scene that sees Patience gradually cornered until she’s trapped in a dead end. In an effort to escape the oncoming thugs, Patience climbs into a pipe (don’t ask) and ends up getting swept by a tidal wave of water (said don’t ask) until she drowns in the city dump (really, don’t). There, Patience is surrounded by a gang of cats and, unlike most murder victims who wind up in city dumps, is revived by them. I guess it helps to look like Halle Berry.
Anyone who knows the Catwoman mythos already knows that Patience comes back to life - but exhibiting some very different traits. Basically, whereas she was passive and mousy before, now she is, well, a bitchy slut. To wit, our resurrected heroine pulls off the following: (1) single-handedly shuts down a rowdy party next door; (2) cuts her hair into a “fuck me” shag; (3) revamps her wardrobe from “bohemian artist” to “kinky porn star”; and (4) fires up a cat-and-mouse (pun intended) flirtation with hot local detective Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt). Wow. Maybe I should get myself killed by thugs then revived by a bunch of cats. I already know I can balance on a narrow ledge and lick cream from a saucer. Don’t ask.
Anyway, Patience receives even more info on her recent transformation from local “Crazy Cat Lady” Ophelia (Frances Conroy). Some sort of academic who turns out to be the owner of the Egyptian Mau that basically gave Patience a new, uh, leash on life, Ophelia conveniently spouts all sorts of info on the long line of Catwomen who, throughout history, have channeled and expressed the duality of women. Namely, the good side - and the dark side. And it appears that our newly-feline Patience is the latest in this line of gals liberated by the power of the cat.
Now, ordinarily, this would be all fine. Patience is basically a sexually-aggressive and assertive chick extraordinaire now, and the movie could have easily ended at this point - with Patience slinking around and banging Tom’s brains out while scratching his back. Unfortunately, Patience gets a bug up her ass about who flushed her down the pipe - and wants revenge. Right around this point, I slapped my head and was like, “Girl, just let it go and enjoy that man-meat on your bed. Gawd!”
But no one asked me, and so Patience starts dressing up in some leather/web belt outfit that looks like it was found in the dumpster behind a Frederick’s of Hollywood. When she’s not burglarizing jewel joints, she’s tracking down clues to solve her “murder.” What will she uncover? Is George Hedare behind her attack? Did he do it to cover up the fact that Beauline is a bust as an anti-aging cream? Or is it someone else? What happens when Tom starts investigating the Catwoman burglaries? Will he realize that Patience and Catwoman are the same person - albeit different sides? Will he try to get them all in a threesome together somehow?
I, for one, would like to see that. PAR-TAY!
BUT, SERIOUSLY: As I wrote above, I believe CATWOMAN had the odds against it from the get-go. While Catwoman as essayed unforgettably by Michelle Pfeiffer in Tim Burton’s BATMAN RETURNS was a huge success, and while there was certainly a huge following for this popular figure, the fact remains that female-driven comic-book movies tend to have more of an uphill battle than male-driven ones. This is obviously unfortunate, but plain-as-day: most comic book films fronted by a woman have generally underperformed or outright bombed at the box office. Some titles include: SUPERGIRL, ELEKTRA, AEON FLUX, and now… CATWOMAN.
Which is a huge shame, because Catwoman has to be the most fascinating superhero. Not good, not bad - but somewhere tantalizingly in between. It’s this dichotomy - and the constant battle between light and dark raging within the character - that makes her endlessly fascinating. Michelle Pfeiffer tapped into this internal conflict with her bravura turn in BATMAN BEGINS, and it remains the best portrayal of Catwoman to date. Had Pfeiffer and director Tim Burton’s version of the character been used for CATWOMAN, or - realistically speaking - a younger actress with Pfeiffer’s talent and skill, it’s very possible this film could have been much better regarded.
But the problem goes deeper, though, than how the character was written or the actress playing her. While the film is certainly not as bad as everyone says it is, it is definitely not any better than average. CATWOMAN is technically well-made, but it has some glaring visual flaws: some obvious CGI here and there, and - most significantly - the way Catwoman moves when leaping from ledge to ledge and building to building. It’s not as fluid or realistic as it should be. And that takes out of the movie at times. If her movement had been captured as it should have been, CATWOMAN would have been a far more arresting film, and would’ve been harder to dismiss. Also, couldn’t the writers have come up with a more compelling “MacGuffin” for Catwoman to battle against than… toxic face cream?
Another reason CATWOMAN never soars higher than the average mark is also due to its lead actress. While I doubt anyone will deny Halle Berry has talent, I think you’ll find many folks who think her portrayal of Patience Phillips/Catwoman was just not gripping enough. Berry never portrays Patience as meek or passive enough. By the same token, she doesn’t invest Catwoman with as much fire and unpredictability as one would like. The result is very little stark contrast between these two different sides to the character. You never felt this way about Michelle Pfeiffer and the way she delivered Selina Kyle/Catwoman to us. The major reason Pfeiffer’s performance succeeds is because she makes these two sides of Selina - and the battle between them - vivid and visceral. Berry never comes close to matching this intensity. Her performance is too laid-back, and so we barely see any true difference in the alleged dichotomy of Patience and Catwoman.
As for the support cast, Sharon Stone fares the strongest as the villainous Laurel Hedare. Stone has played variations on this character in most of her films beginning with BASIC INSTINCT, and so she can do it in her sleep. As good as she is, though, you can’t help but wonder how another actress might have played the role. Stone hits all the expected “femme fatale” notes with reasonable skill, but there are times when we feel we’ve seen her do this many times before - and we have.
Benjamin Bratt, Lambert Wilson, Alex Bornstein, and Frances Conroy are all adequate in their pivotal support roles. As with Berry and Stone, they turn in solid but unremarkable turns that don’t really linger in the memory after the film is over. Which is precisely the problem with this film: while it is an average movie, and not the turkey everyone makes it out to be, it is also quite unmemorable - which is definitely not what any film about Catwoman should be.
To see how far off the path Pitof, Berry, and his crew wandered in portraying Catwoman, take a look at BATMAN RETURNS. If you’ve seen it already, you’ll rediscover the beauty, thrill, and heartbreak of Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance. If you haven’t, then all I have to say to you is this…
… prepare to have your breath taken away. She’s that great.
