Top Box Office Movies

Catwoman (2004) Warner Brothers
1 hr. 30 mins.
Starring: Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Lambert Wilson, Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Alex Borstein
Director: Pitof

Catwoman

Rating:

E-MAIL FRANK OCHIENG

Photo: Warner Brothers

In watching the curvy Oscar-winning Halle Berry don the skin tight suit in the sassy anti-superhero saga Catwoman, one must admit that this special eye candy is something that cannot be denied. And director Pitof does in fact lend this picture its glossy and mysterious allure in a unique manner that’s inescapable to ignore. Beyond these couple of minor observations, this cosmetic kitty with the conflicting personality doesn’t quite cut it as the escapist comic caper it could have been.

Let’s just say that Berry’s wily whiskers as the conniving feline femme fatale were played by predecessors armed with better material on a smaller stage. Berry truly has the bouncy body and sensual soul to portray this hot-blooded hairball heroine. However, the likes of past kitten cuties Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, Lee Meriweather, and Michelle Pffeiffer need not worry about losing any sleep over Berry’s coveted role as the calculating top cat. It’s really unfair to saddle all the blame on Berry for this tepid and tired movie that has all the appeal of a box of stale Tender Vittles. The fingers (in this case the paws) should be pointed at John Brancato and Mike Ferris who have trouble making Berry’s viable vixen come alive in a stilted story that feels needlessly generic. As mentioned previously, Pitof helms a movie that looks good on the outside but there’s much to be desired as far as the pedestrian direction is concerned.

Berry plays Patience Phillips, a put upon graphic artist struggling to get by to make ends meet. She toils for the Hedare Beauty company, a seedy outfit dealing in cosmetics. Patience’s boss is a villainous cad named George Hedare (Lambert Wilson). His partner-in-crime is his bitter wife Laurel (Sharon Stone), an attractive but aging fortysomething with a major chip on her shoulder. As a tandem, the ruthless couple diligently creates a cream product that bucks the aging process—they call it Beau-line and it needs to be applied on the face daily in order for it to work its inexplicable magic. However, the unpredictable Beau-line has its faulty setbacks and that can never be a good sign for marketing strategies for the company, now can it?

Unfortunately for meek employee Patience, she stumbles upon this secret and her safety is jeopardized. Soon she is “extinguished” by her shady superiors and left to perish alone in darkness. Patience is magically revived thanks to a mysterious Egyptian cat named Midnight. Curiously, this critter happens to have some mystical powers and transfers it into Patience’s limp frame. And thus the Catwoman is born!

Eventually, Patience (as well as the audience) is educated about the histrionics of her incredible cat-like mystique from cat lady Ophelia (Frances Conroy from HBO’s critically acclaimed drama Six Feet Under). More importantly, Patience adopts a more confident and brasher attitude as she is able to express her frustrations in her newly purrrr-fect persona. With a skimpy leather clad wardrobe accompanied by a whip and an impish impulse to match, Patience/Catwoman is a force not to be messed around with as she quickly makes her presence known. This masked hissing hellcat is out to pounce on those whom she deems undesirable. And yes, retaliation is in her blood as she looks forward to being reunited with the Hedares, particularly that egomaniac ice queen Laurel who needs to be put down a couple of notches or so.

Things begin to get somewhat complicated when hunky police hotshot Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt) enters the picture. He’s assigned to get to the bottom of putting a permanent collar on the elusive colorful purring pixie in an effort to curve her criminal ways. But little does Lone realize is that his romantic interest in Patience is in fact a double edge sword as he is bedding down the roguish radiant enemy he seeks to bring to justice. Maybe we are missing something here but why can’t Lone put two and two together and realize that his ebony princess Patience may in fact be the same brown sugar bombshell that’s prancing around town in an S&M costume while demonstrating some catty behavior? What’s fooling him about Patience as compared to the crafty Catwoman in terms of ethnicity, body size, voice patterns, etc.? Hmmm, it must be the pointy ears on Catwoman’s masked head that’s doing the trick, huh?

The handlers behind Catwoman failed miserably in coughing up a spry premise that could have given Batman’s badass babe nemesis a cult following to enjoy in her own distinctive movie series. Sadly, this first-time experiment is lacking the cohesive sense to tell a solid structured story that’s interesting in its offbeat skin. But Pitof, a French editor/filmmaker with a sturdy background in graphic design and former director in commercials/ads, fortifies his movie with the liveliness of snappy images and drowns his neglected narrative in rousing tunes that would make any music video sulk with envy. Although there’s no doubt that Catwoman has the flashiness that captures the naked eye, this exposition is exceedingly empty-minded in tone and motivation. Technically, the movie is a constant display of overwrought filmmaking tactics—excessive jump cuts, annoying camera angles, unnecessary close up shots, etc. It’s as if Pitof’s exaggerated style of presenting this pulsating package was a desperate effort to skim over the lack of an involving storyline for something more sensational and catchy.

The film’s star Berry undeniably has the brains and beauty to make this particular sexpot a soaring personality that registers in the mindset of this jousting kitty caper. But again, the film’s frivolous focus doesn’t give her anything challenging to hang her hat on. There’s never really any true sense of conflict or durable angst that would make us feel for Berry’s Catwoman or her alter ego Patience Phillips for that matter. For instance, if her torment was as legitimate as Peter Parker in Spider-Man then we could understand her lashing out with more conviction and cynicism. Who can identify with feeling sorry for a soft-spoken gorgeous gal? Plus, we never even see Patience try to struggle with her newfound talent as the skillful Catwoman despite her current apprehensive mode as the hesitant honeybun Patience.

As for the love story aspect of Berry’s Patience/Catwoman and Bratt’s clueless cop Tom Lone, this romantic subplot is about as wooden as a park bench. Their union is not titillating enough nor is it convincing to the point that we care about these attractive souls playing footsies without acknowledging how their bond may be disrupted by adversity in the long run. The juiced up confrontations between Berry’s Catwoman and Stone’s wickedly mature blonde bombshell Laurel Hardare has its impish moments of camp at times but these gimmicky fight scenes become tiresome after a while. And having Alex Borstein (late from Fox television’s Mad TV) play a cute chubby sidekick to Berry’s gloomy good-looking Patience feels like a wasted ploy to show how “regular” this pretty gal is in her doomed misery.

Maybe some will excuse the cartoonish aura of the plagued Catwoman and simply dismiss it as a flimsy fantasy meant to bring a sense of easy entertainment to the masses. And that’s fine if this high-strung cheesy offering is something that you can digest along with putting edible catnip on your crackers. However, this vacuous vehicle is certainly not acceptable for an Oscar-winning actress to slum around in especially when her credibility as an adventurous performer is at stake. Halle, forget the dreary days of BAPS, The Rich Man’s Wife, Swordfish and Gothika—you’re in the big leagues now.

With the inconceivable Catwoman added to your film resume Halle, you’ll be itching for the bothersome flea-ridden film choices to abandon your memory bank altogether. Talking about going by the cat’s meow!

Click here to comment on this review or post your own thoughts.

Frank Ochieng
© TheWorldJournal.com

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