Catwoman
written by John Bracanto, Michael Ferris and
John Rogers
directed by Pitof
starring Halle
Berry
and Sharon Stone
review by Stephen Notley
The male-dominated nerd world months ago
wrote Catwoman off
sight unseen as crap. The trailers said it all. With a ridiculous
costume,
badly-delivered one-liners and a total lack of respect for the original
comics,
Catwoman was sure to suck.
And yes, it's true, the costume is kinda
bad, and Halle Berry
does fumble some of those one-liners,
and the story has nothing to do with the comics and doesn't even
*mention*
Batman. But y'know by the time that stuff hit I didn't care because
this movie totally
had me on its side.
Giving up some nerd-cred I must admit I know
next to nothing
about the comics Catwoman; all I knew was that this was another version
of the
same character played by Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns -- that
is, a shy,
mousy woman who is murdered and then mystically resuscitated by
sympathetic
cats.
This time the mousy girl is Halle
Berry, a talented artist who
sold out and
mousily works doing art direction for a sleazy cosmetics firm run by
Sharon
Stone and the Merovingian (snooty French guy) from Matrix Reloaded. As
over-serious Storm in the X-Men films Halle feels a little stiff, but
here she wears
the frumpiness naturally, color-discoordinated, clunkin' shyly around
until she
happens to stumble across the fact that the firm's new product
Beau-Line
(pronounced "Bee-oh-leen") has the unpleasant side effect of melting
people's faces off. The cosmetics biz being the competitive one that it
is Berry
gets chased, shot at and flushed, dies, has cat-life breathed into her
and
finally goes home, and now she's Catwoman.
Over the next few days Halle
begins to realize something's happened, and this is where Catwoman
really
shines. She's great, so alive to what's happening, responding in such a
believable way. She'll do some instinctive cat thing --hiss at a dog,
say-- and
then she'll stop for a second and think, "Whoa, what's going on
here?" She's always thinking about it, and the scenes connect in that
good
way, and as she gets kittier she gets cooler, unlocking the things in
her
personality that were holding her back. It's the superhero dream,
particularly
the Spider-Man idea, that getting these superpowers just allows you to
be the
person you really are, and it feels good to see her explore her new
self. She's
not driven by a tragedy or a duty; she's more of a personal avenger,
setting
her own course, doing what she wants… you know, like a cat.
Unfortunately that also involves falling in
love with a cop,
a sweet sexy sensitive goodlooking dreamboat guy unmarked by any trace
of
character. Seeing him made me feel sudden sympathy for all those
girlfriends
watching hero movies and finding nothing to connect to in the "hero's
girlfriend" character, like MJ always needing to be rescued and being
loved cuz you're there. He's such a ridiculous sweetheart he's a drag
on the
movie and let's face it, he's just too nice to be dating Catwoman.
Early in the movie I was liking Catwoman but
getting a little worried about how her enemies were shaping up.
Unfortunately they never really get their poo together and she never
has to go
up against anybody truly tough. The one exception is Sharon Stone,
thank God,
who's ready to kick Catwoman's ass before she even exists. She's such a
potent
force, even in just a few scenes, it's a shame she didn't get to crack
out a bit
more super-villainess action. She really deserved to get a CGI puppet
version
of herself dishing out some bigger slams to Halle's
CGI puppet. Oh well.
Also good was Alex Borstein as Halle's
funny girlfriend, the kind of character that usually drives you nuts in
movies
like this. But as both the voice of Lois Griffen on Family Guy and
staff writer
on the same show, Borstein's got comedy cred and *her* one-liners are
actually
funny.
So yeah. Costume is kind silly, and the
action is a bit
cutty and computery, and the romantic plot is a bit of a dud. But Halle
becoming Catwoman? Worth seeing. Nerds are probably gonna hate this as
they
hated Daredevil, and Catwoman certainly has a Daredevily feel to it.
But maybe
Catwoman isn't a superhero movie for nerds, maybe it's a superhero
movie for
girls. I liked it; I'd be curious to hear what girls who see it think.
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