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Patience Philips is dead - and more alive than
ever. Murdered after she learns the secret behind a cosmetic
firm's anti-ageing cream, she's revived and empowered by mystical
felines. Now she's on the slinky prowl for adventure and revenge.
She's Catwoman...
Catwoman
wisely
keeps away from the Selina Kyle Catwoman that Batman
fans worldwide have come to see transformed over the years.
This movie reveals that there have been numerous Catwomen
over the years dating back to the time of the Egyptian pharaohs.
The
movie itself is not as bad as I was expecting - it really
wasn't received well on its theatrical release. But it is
still riddled with faults. Firstly I wanted to state for the
record that all of the actors are faultless. There is not
a bad performance here. Sure there are some duff lines, but
these are usually given to Berry who does her best and almost
succeeds in pulling of lines like: "What a Purrfect crime".
Sadly these are so clichéd now that it really made
my skin crawl.
But
then poor Berry has a history of having to spout duff lines.
In X-Men
after killing Toad she has to deliver the line: "Do you
know what happens to a Toad when it gets struck by lightning?
The same thing that happens to everything else." And
in the James Bond movie Die
Another Day she had loads of really poor lines
- most of which has sexual connotations including: "That's
a mouthful."
Director
Pitof was really thrown in at the deep end - this being his
first serious Hollywood movie. And sadly it shows. For God's
sake what is wrong with the man? Does he think his audience
are all attention deficit? Then why insist on switching the
camera angle without fail every two seconds? Also what the
hell is with his camera operators. Hand held camera work is
not, and has never been, cool or cutting edge. The worst example
of this is in the alternate ending where the camera revolves
around Berry and Benjamin
Bratt as they trade lines and then snog. One minute the camera
is circling them clockwise, the next anticlockwise! And it
cuts so quickly that it made me feel sick. Didn't Pitof ever
go to film school?
Another
problem I had was with the CGI. The technology is not at a
level yet where a movie's main character can be substituted
believably. It just looks comical. See Hulk
and Spider-Man
as prime examples (even though Spider-Man is a damn
entertaining movie).
But
by far my biggest gripe was with the plot itself. Now I'm
not really going to spoil anything for you here, as everything
is set up from very early on, but a great surprise twist in
the tale was lost due to some poor story telling. The fact
that it is the wife of the head of the cosmetics company,
Laurel Hedare (played brilliantly by Sharon Stone) who knows
that the cosmetics her husbands company are about to release
onto an unsuspecting public can produce some undesirable side
effects should have been hidden from the audience. Sadly we
know that she is
the real brains behind the operation as it is spoon fed to
us from the point where Patience is transformed into Catwoman.
If, instead, the writers had not shown Stone's involvement,
then we would have gone along with Catwoman believing that
it was George Hedare who was behind it all the while. Then,
as Laurel agrees to help Catwoman but then tries to frame
her for murder, we should have been let into the fact that
it was her all along. Now that would have proved more interesting
surely than the rather lame story we are spoon fed from the
beginning.
Also
I have a serious problem believing that a cosmetics company
would be able to release a product like that onto the market.
All it would take is one person to stop using it, start to
scar badly and even a muppet would be able to put two and
two together and close down Hedare's company. Mind you, having
said that, we are polluting are bodies with pharmaceutical
carcinogens every day and no one seems to mind.
Sadly
I was sent a pan and scanned version of the movie to watch.
Yes I know! It's criminal isn't it? But for some reason the
American DVD viewing audience like to chose between widescreen
and what they term "full screen". Personally, when
I've spent a small fortune in kiting myself out with the best
DVD player on the market, a surround sound system to rival
most cinemas and a widescreen TV that takes up most of my
wall... I don't really want to watch the movie in the same
format that ITV will no doubt broadcast it in! I want to see
the whole bloody picture as though I was in the cinema.
Extras
on the disc include some deleted scenes; The Many Faces
of Catwoman featurette which is hosted by the bonkers
and scary Eartha Kitt and looks back at all of the actresses
that have played Catwoman over the years; and finally there
is a behind the scenes featurette on the movie - which is
not very revealing.
Sadly
this movie could have been great. There is a good plot there,
but it was badly told. As I mentioned previously all of the
actors put in great performances, what a shame the director
let everyone down. Very average.
Nick
Smithson
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