Catwoman

I enjoyed this movie. It made me laugh at the end of a tough day. "Camp" is defined as "an affectation or appreciation of manners and tastes commonly thought to be outlandish, vulgar, or banal." It is also defined as "banality or artificiality when appreciated for its humor." I agree that movies such as "Spiderman" have taken the comic book genre into the realm of serious drama, and I enjoy that as a long-time fan of that comic series. And it would have been interesting to have seen "Catwoman" taken in that direction; however, it was not, and we should appreciate and enjoy the movie for what the writers and director chose to do with it. It is as much about Halle Berry as it is the comic book character herself. When Halle makes her appearance in that leather suit, walking along seductively, that will go down in film history right alongside Raquel Welch in her cave woman outfit that we have seen so many times on posters. When Halle throws that little overdone strut into her walk, that brings a smile to my face and actually makes me laugh out loud at times. True, Sharon Stone is over the hill as an aesthetic pleasure, and the plot is as silly as any we have seen. But that is the whole point! Laugh at and with this film, enjoy it as a piece of work not meant to be serious drama. This film rates a B in my book, whereas "Sky Captain" is barely a C.

Directing 0/10, Writing 0/10, Cinematography 0.5/10, Editing 1/10, Acting 0.5/10, Overall Satisfaction 0/10

Final- 0.5/10

One word is brought to mind when thinking back to my viewing of, Catwoman- Crap. It might be inspired by my estimation of the film's display of only 12 minutes of living, breathing actors (which I will get into more below). Or it could possibly be inspired by the many errors that there wasn't even an attempt to cover, i.e.- Patience becomes Catwoman after wandering into a restricted area. How did she get into this restricted area, you ask? By walking through the door marked 'RESTRICTED AREA,' in bold, red text, which was simply unlocked and didn't even have a significant locking device on it. You know, I might've also hated the movie (not worthy of the word 'film') because of the pointless-undeveloped story line. And, really, it's not possible to look beyond the disgustingly audacious 'style' of one-named director, Pitof, which can only be described as the style of a headless chicken running through a maze of landmines. Oh, yes, said headless chicken is also being chased by angry natives wielding machetes.

I mentioned above that I estimated that only 12 minutes of living, breathing actors were shown during the entire 140 minutes of film. Almost every sequence of the movie featuring an actor seemed to be butchered by the insertion of CGI's. I'm dead serious. I'm not just talking high-flying, sucky action sequences- I'm talking scenes of Catwoman walking to a motorcycle and calmly getting on it, and the other one that immediately comes to mind is a sequence where a man (a baddie) is simply walking. Yeah, walking. It seems agents and managers are really watching over their clients these days.

Now, two questions I'm asking-

1) What is the point of Catwoman? What the [expletive] does she do?

It's explained in the film that Midnight, the 'magical' cat, chose Patience to become Catwoman, but something is wrong here- CATWOMAN HAS NO PURPOSE!! Every other superhero out there has a purpose- They save people! It seems Catwoman's only purpose is to kill the people who attempted to kill her and chase a cricket or two. There's nothing else to her!

2) Where is the REAL back story?

It sure as [expletive] wasn't in the film! Why wasn't she shocked and attempting to reason and deal with the emotional ass-kicking that would come with the revelation? She's told she's Catwoman by the cliché cat lady, she buys a mask and nails and the result is the 'superhero.' It's adds up, but not into anything of any value whatsoever. Shame on you terrible writers!

Halle Berry is a good actress. I'm not doubting or denying that. She fully deserved her Academy Award nomination and win for 2001's Monster's Ball, but something bad happened here. Her acting started awful and ended awful. I'm hoping the talents and reputation of Berry won't be harmed by her inadequate performance.

Now, My request to Halle Berry- Ms. Berry, I want my money back. I never thought I could see such a terrible performance from an Oscar winning actress. Maybe you were just doing your best with the material? But, you know, that really is not a valid excuse. After reading the screenplay, you should've thrown it in the face of the agent who dared display it to you. How could you not notice how awful it was? Make some better choices and hopefully your career won't plummet as so many others have.

I recall an interview with Ashley Judd, the original casting choice for Catwoman, who said something along the lines of, 'Turning down the role of Catwoman is one the things I regret the most.' Ashley, never say that again. You have only been saved by not appearing in this hilariously terrible film.

Listen people, don't waste your money on this glorified..er…um..crap. It's not worth the $6-$15 bucks!

So now you ask, why not just give it a zero? Why the zero-point five? Well, The editing was sufficiently bad; the acting of Alex Borstein could've possibly taken some effort, appropriately placed CGI's were okay, and I like cats.

Directing 0/10, Writing 0/10, Cinematography 0.5/10, Editing 1/10, Acting 0.5/10, Overall Satisfaction 0/10

Final- 0.5/10

I scored a free ticket to this movie, and I thought, hey, I've wasted my whole life up to now, what's another hundred and forty-one minutes? After all, I have a higher tolerance for crap than most people, and, once in a while, I like to see something that completely sucks. According to the critics and to voters on IMDb, Catwoman is supposed to suck bad. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the movie really doesn't suck. I mean, yeah, it sucks, but it hardly plumbs the depths of true suckitude. Currently it sits at #35 on the IMDb bottom 100, but I can think of way more than 34 other movies that suck far worse than Catwoman. It is much more fair to say that it is a mediocre, perhaps slightly below average, action film. It has a few pros and lots of cons. The cons first: 1) The jumpy editing is awful. 2) Way too much CGI. Same problem with the 500 pound gorilla comic book movie out right now, as well. CGI is probably the worst thing ever to happen to cinema; it's hard to believe people are worshiping a technique that looks more fake than stop-motion. 3) Benjamin Bratt is a horrible actor, and the ugliest handsome man I've ever seen. 4) How the f*ck did Alex Borstein land a movie role? She should be doomed to die on MAD TV, the longest running train wreck of a show ever. 5) Crappy, crappy script. The pros: 1) The film looks wonderful, even though that's due mostly to the CGI (I guess when it's making buildings and inanimate objects like that, it's not so bad). The costume design, even apart from the Catwoman outfit. And if they gave out Oscars to hair stylists, the ones who worked on this film would have no competition. 2) Sharon Stone – not a great performance, by any means. Her character is downright silly, perhaps even nonsensical. But she's gorgeous and has a great presence. She makes a really boring villain somewhat more interesting. 3) Duh! Halle Berry! She might not have the best ability to choose roles. Perhaps she's just obsessed with money, and now that she's got a statuette, she's going to do everything in her power to become a billionaire. Whatever you can say about her, she's a great actress. Last year, she brought Gothika up a notch, and she does a lot to make Catwoman more entertaining than it ought to be. She plays the characters' two halves, the sweet, insecure girl and the dominatrix, very well. And, come on, I'd be lying if I said I didn't go to the movie because I thought Berry would be walking around in a leather outfit for a good portion of the movie. And, damn, she's hot. This makes the movie watchable, if nothing else. There's a shot where the camera circles Berry from toe to head right after she first dons the Catwoman which was worth the price of me embarrassing myself by handing my free pass over to the cute little theater girl at the counter. 5/10.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) is a pathetically meek graphic designer at a cosmetics firm who's also so utterly f*cking thick she does such idiotic things as risking her life by climbing onto a building to rescue a cat!However,one day she inadvertently learns that her bosses are planning to release an addictive anti-ageing cream (?!?) onto the shelves,and finds her life coming to a premature end.Or,is that beginning,as she finds herself turning into Catwoman,heroic defender of law and bringer of justice.

There is a distinctly cruel irony whereby a film can end up receiving so many bad reviews (which are meant to deter people from watching the film!) people end up watching it anyway...just to see how bad it is.I suppose on the basis of that,I should seek out 1998's The Avengers sometime.I'd like to give Showgirls a go sometime too (I missed it when they showed it on Channel 4 recently.) Yep,in terms of 2004's most major cinematic disaster,Catwoman was,well,not to put too fine a pun on it,the cat that got the cream.Opening to abominable reviews,from everyone from Empire to Zoo magazine,it was ushered out of cinemas during the 'summer blockbuster' period almost as quickly as it was released.It then placed it's lead star in the embarrassing position of accepting a razzie award having earned an Oscar for her devastating turn in Monster's Ball only a few years earlier.

It is a pretty dreadful film,but there are arguably a lot worse.It's main problem is the story,which is so uninteresting,but the same could be said of the action on display.Also,this is a film that's managed a pretty notorious achievement.It makes Halle Berry look unsexy.The first suit we see her strutting around in is okay and fairly pleasing to the eye,but the main one (the one she's in on the poster) is really unsexy and unflattering.

If you want to engage your curiosity value,go right ahead,but I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for.**

I'm tempted to write a long piece explaining why this film was so bad, but I can all too easily summarise by saying "Everything".

It was poorly acted, predictable, unenthralling, clichéd nonsense. And that was just the first half hour, at which point, for the sake of my brain and stopping it melting with the sheer tedium, I walked out of the cinema.

If you're genuinely sad enough to believe that paying good money to see Halle Berry in a PVC suit is good enough reason to spend time gawking at this trash, then fine. Who am I to try to persuade you to try and do something more valuable with your time, like base-jumping without a parachute?

Utterly abysmal