Review: Catwoman
It would be biased to only review the good movies I see, so hey. In all honesty, I did not for the life of me want to see this “film”. I expected the worst in the world, but I got just really terrible.
So the first time I ever heard that they were going to make a Catwoman movie, I just said “okay”. Then I heard they casted Halle Berry, and my reactions was “interesting…”. Then first images of her costume were released and I was like “WTF?”. Then the trailer came out and I just shook my head and asked myself, “why would they go ahead with this?”.
I saw it a mile a way, this movie is a stinker. If they can’t make a movie look good in a trailer, how will they pull off the movie? So after some kicking and screaming I was dragged to the movies. I already hated the movie and was waiting for it to be over. I expected the worst. In fact, I think my low low expectations helped me deal with it.
First off, the story. Forget anything you ever knew about Catwoman, because it’s not here. It really isn’t Catwoman. It’s not Gotham City. It’s not Selena Kyle. There’s absolutely no relation to the comics. Instead we get a story about Patience something. She’s a graphic artist for a cosmetics company. She finds out about some new cream that has terrible side effects and is addictive. But they kill her. A cat brings her back to life with some unexplained power. Now she’s like half cat or something. She’ll act like a cat sometimes, she’ll act bad sometimes. It’s like she has a split personality. But apparently she has new cat powers, but she doesn’t seem surprised by it or has problems dealing with it. She just says ok and is Catwoman. The movie explains nothing. At first it seems like she has a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing going, but then later on it doesn’t seem so. Is she learning to control her ‘bad’ side? Is it the cat powers taking a hold of her, or her inner self? Nothing. The movie also doesn’t have a point. It may seem that her pre-cat self was a nerdy closet case, and the Catwoman makes her feel more free and herself. But is it? She gains confidence in herself, but there’s nothing to show for it in the end. And her love interest side plot was laughable. They talked, they played basketball, they have sex. Never did you see any real connection. And she never shows any real concern for anything, she doesn’t care about the bad cosmetic product that may harm every woman in the country. She only shows a brief concern about getting revenge on her “killers”, but even then you forget why she’s going around beating up people.
Ok, so the plot is bad, the action must be at least entertaining right? No not really. The fight scenes are 50% CG shots of her doing impossible cat jumps and climbs. And the CG is really bad. When she isn’t CG, it’s rapid fire editing that makes it impossible to see what’s really going on. I supposed that is always handy when your action star can’t really perform for a long shot. It’s sad that they steal fight scene ideas from Hong Kong movies, but don’t learn that they work because they take long wide shots of the fights. It’s literally, she motions kick, cut, foot hits face, cut, he falls back, cut, she lands on her feet, cut. Why bother? And there are numerous pointless shots of her climbing buildings, jumping across buildings, sliding down buildings, and walking, almost entirely done in CG, just to show that she is going from one place to another. I don’t think I ever shook my head so much in a movie.
I don’t know why they chose this french director that goes by one name, Pitof, to take on this movie. He comes from a visual effects background, and it shows. He has no sense of direction or editing. Camera shots move fast when it’s not needed, and again unnecessary rapid-fire editing is either covering up bad shots or is just bad decision making.
All the actors’ performances are nothing worth mentioning. Again, this may not be the fault of the actors but the director. And those of you wanting to see it because Halle Berry looks hot? I don’t know. The costume looks silly really, and even with all that skin showing, she doesn’t look hot. She looks better in her baggy clothes when she was nerdy and clumsy. After her transformation, she doesn’t look better. I don’t know how they managed to do that.
There is nothing worth seeing here. Avoid at all costs. However, I did find one bright side to this movie. It makes Spider-man 2 look like Citizen Kane. My appreciation for Spidey is even greater now.
