Catwoman In Name Only
Catwoman has been in my Netflix queue for a while now, but I knew I wasn’t going to get through it without copious amounts of alcohol. I grabbed a four-pack of my favorite double IPA (Ninja vs. Unicorn by Pipeworks Brewing) and headed to a friend’s apartment, so I wouldn’t suffer alone.
The bad news: Catwoman is god awful and deserving of its 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The good news? It’s not painfully bad, and falls squarely into the entertaining kind of awful, which is more than I can say for half of the Hellraiser saga.
“You don’t win a Razzie without a lot of help from a lot of people.”
—Halle Berry
Let’s start with some history, because this film was doomed almost from the start. Released in 2004, plans for a stand-alone Catwoman movie were in place from 1993, with Michelle Pfeiffer set to reprise her role from Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. Then development hell happened, and as writer after writer attacked the script, both director and lead actress left to pursue other projects. By the time Warner finally got around to making the movie, the Catwoman script had been touched by 28 writers, given to an untested director (the single-named Pitof) and starred Halle Berry.
Oh, and Catwoman was no longer about Catwoman, at least, not DC’s Catwoman. Ignoring 64 years of canon, this film ditches the well-established character Selina Kyle for newbie Patience Phillips, a nebbish graphic designer at a cosmetics firm. For reasons I was too inebriated to comprehend, Philipps is attacked by security and left for dead, presumably because she stumbled onto the cosmetics company’s dark secret to produce an evil anti-aging cream. In addition to making up a completely new character, Catwoman’s writers invent a new origin story, new superpowers and new attributes for the titular character. Philipps now acts like a cat, is obsessed with catnip and eats tuna straight out of the can. She also speaks in puns that reach Mr. Freeze from Batman and Robin levels. There’s also a side plot involving Philipps and Detective Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt), which follows nearly every romcom cliche to the letter.
What makes this movie entertainingly bad is its ability to be mocked mercilessly. Every single aspect of the film is a deliberate choice, from the multiple overhead camera shots, to the CGI cats. One doesn’t watch Catwoman so much as laugh at it while throwing things at the screen and questioning the director’s choices. To their credit, most of the actors do the best with what they’re given. Halle Berry gives her all; Sharon Stone plays a convincing villain and Berry’s sidekick Alex Borstein plays the comic relief well enough. As my friend noted, there are brief flashes in the movie (perhaps three) where the original script shows through. Occasionally you can see what could have been if the movie had been released back in 1993.
Unfortunately, development hell was not kind to the script, and three decent moments do not a good movie make. Catwoman also suffers from its extreme lack of respect for the source material. Inventing a new character to take on the mantle of a hero or villain is nothing new, and comic studios do it all the time. But Patience Philipps is a weak substitute for Selina Kyle, with none of the moral ambiguity of the established character. Watching the retconned origin story I can’t help but hear Kevin Smith’s tale of working on the Superman script, where the established character is tossed aside in favor of the whims of the man fronting the money.
As more comic-book aficionados gain control over comic-book movies and can produce successful movies that are more faithful to the source material (see Deadpool), mid-2000s comic-book movies seem further out of place. A million little things could have improved Catwoman, but the biggest improvement would have been to take each writer down to their local comic-book shop and read some comics. If that had happened, maybe we wouldn’t have gotten a bullshit origin story involving mythological Egyptian cats.
Catwoman tl;drs
Quick summary: Warner Bros.’ Catwoman stars Halle Berry as Patience Phillips, a woman who gains supernatural catlike powers after being left for dead. Unintentional hilarity ensues.
Too many writers? This movie is the epitome of too many writers. Twenty-eight people touched the script at one point or another, and ten of those were involved in arbitration over who got credit.
Recommended if you like:Supplementing your moviegoing experience with heavy doses of alcohol and mental pain.
Better than I expected? The cast is one of the most racially diverse of any superhero film I’ve seen.
Worse than I hoped? Tough to pick just one moment; let’s go with the overuse of jump cuts.
Should it be rebooted? Anne Hathaway redeemed the character in The Dark Knight Rises. I wouldn’t mind a decent spin-off solo movie, but only if it’s based on canon.
Verdict: Never trust a mononymed director.
Related Reading: Wiki article
10 nice things about the movie, from Den of Geek
Related Viewing: Halle Berry’s acceptance speech at the Razzies
