Guilty Parties Involved: Halle Berry, the guy from Law & Order (not Jerry Orbach, the Ben guy) Sharon Stone (still alive) and directed by some dude with 1 name (Pissoff I think it was.)

Fun-Crap Rating: 7 out of 10

2004 / 104 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: Some parts, like when she’s walking around her apartment jumping on things like a cat, are well done. Parts of Berry are also well done.

Really terrible part: Berry’s first-person view of a screen-filling fake CGI cat leaning over and breathing magical dust/fumes/asbestos into her face, transforming her into Catwoman! Terrible but gut-wrenchingly hilarious.

Memorable line: Sharon Stone to nearly defeated Catwoman: “Game over!” Catwoman’s response? “It’s Overtime!” Whip cracking ensues.

“Catwoman” was one of those movies that was destined to suck the chrome off a bumper from the word go. Back in the day it was going to star what’s her face, ug, does all those crappy romance movies and always has short hair? Right, Ashley Judd. But she must have been making her 10th Morgan Freeman “suspense thriller” at the time and passed the baton of Cat-Crappiness to Halle Berry, who’s been around for a long time but apparently only now after her “take off your shirt, win an Oscar!” trick do people care. (IMHO she was way, WAY hotter back in stuff like “The Flintstones” and “Passenger 57″, but I guess 10 less years will do that to a person)

Anyway, Catwoman. Right. Apparently cats have been empowering women since the dawn of time, which is movie terms is ancient Eygpt. I guess the deal here is an immortal cat named Midnight (the aforementioned dust-breathing CGI one) apparently goes around turning recently dead dowdy women into ass-kicking sex-bombs called “Catwomen” This gives them the ability to turn into cock-teases, jump on things and meow. Supposedly these powers are to somehow be used for the good of mankind… Granted it’s hard to comprehend how exactly which probably explains why the Berry Catwoman does, in fact, not a damn thing for mankind (Or the audience).

Well if you’re a Warner Exec this is a sure-fire box office smash! Now I don’t even give a rat’s ass about comparing this to the Michelle Piffier, Pzeipper. shit I can’t spell it, Catwoman in “Batman Returns”, that movie wasn’t all that great in and of itself IMHO. All I care about is if Catwoman the New Movie is a fun crap-fest ride with plenty to ridicule. And for the most part it is. For a crappy example you’ve got Halle Berry meeting, ah that’s it, his name is Benjamin Bratt (the love interest) while she’s standing outside her apartment window and since he’s a cop (from his Law & Order days) he obviously expects her to jump. She explains she’s just trying to save her cat or some such nonsense. Ha ha, how cute.

This is how most couples in real life meet you know - screw eHarmony or your friend’s friend’s brother’s sister co-worker! Nope, next time you want to meet the hunky cop of your dreams simply stand outside your apartment window until he comes along and assumes suicide (BTW Halle’s apartment was maybe 3 stories up in that shit-tacular scene. Obviously standard suicide height - just so long as you don’t land on a bush/swimming pool).

But surely the stupidest BS is the “evil corporation’s plot” They’ve developed a skin cream that makes you look good until you stop using it, at which point you turn into what looks like a hungover Lyle Lovitt who did shots of battery acid the night before. (Also note how this plot was stolen from an episode of the excellent Batman Animated Series from the early 90’s) Conveinently Halle Berry works as a dowdy graphic artist for said company complete with a cubicle and two co-workers so annoying you’ll want to pull a .38 and plug your TV. Anyway big boobs overhears the evil plot and is thus “killed” by some goons. They accomplish this by flushing her down a pipe and saying something like “Ha! No dowdy large-breasted graphic artist could survive THAT! Let’s go grab a beer!”

Of course she’s not dead - she gets breathed on by a magical CGI cat so obviously she’s now CATWOMAN! Now she’s “empowered” which I guess means becoming a bitch. She beats up a neighbor (wow) climbs up a Ferris wheel (excitement) and. damn. I think that’s about it. Wait, she snarls at a dog! (This from someone who’s demanding a bigger part in “X-Men 3″ to “develop” her character. Sheesh) Oh I haven’t mentioned yet that all the big shots of the city she lives in look fake as hell. Someone should tell the director that wowy-zooming the camera around doesn’t hide the fakey-ness rather it only makes it more obvious it’s all in a computer. It was so bad we started calling it “CGI City” about 15 minutes in. (Though not NEARLY as bad as the wowy-zooming city shots in the utterly craptacular “Dungeons & Dragons”)

The big finale of this debacle is Catwoman having to fight the head of the evil cream-making corporation - none other than a “Damn, she looks almost as old as my mom” Sharon Stone! (Off subject, what’s with “Basic Instinct 2″ being made? If I wanted to see people that age naked I’d go work in a rest home) Well get this! Sharon Stone’s used so much of the evil cream that her skin has become - and I shit you not, these are her word in the movie - “hard as marble”! This allows her to put up a pretty good fight against Catwoman but of course in the end evil Sharon falls off a building or something and her face cracks apart. It’s possible that the “face cracking” effect was accomplished by simply not filming Sharon with warm light and soft focus like they do everywhere else in the movie.

Summary: Catwoman has enough stupid lame-ass crap to keep your eyes open and plenty of groan-inducing dialog for that morbidly bad “can’t look away from a car wreck” kinda feel. It’s not as ludicrously moronically terrible as “Batman & Robin” but it’s also a good half-hour shorter, so hopefully it’ll end before you lose your interest in mocking it and take your own life. (By jumping out a 3rd story window)

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 4 per person

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) Halle stumbles, falls, or otherwise does something clumsy (before she’s Catwoman).
2) There’s a swirling CGI shot around the building Halle Berry works in.
3) Halle’s co-workers ask her about her sex life or what she’s up to.
4) You hear the words “Beau-Line” (name of evil cream).
5) Each time Halle drinks cream or eats tuna.
6) Catwoman walks like the chicks in Grand Theft Auto.
7) A close-up shot of Sharon Stone is slightly out-of-focus (like the old Star Trek chicks).
You see a brown paper coffee cup (Trust me).
9) There’s a gratuitous shot of Halle’s ass or chest.
10) The stupid hero “Midnight” cat wanders into a scene for no apparently reason.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 22nd, 2005 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Ben's Picks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.