Ok, I basically enjoyed Catwoman. I mean really, Halle Berry strutting around for 90 minutes in a tight-leather outfit; I was going to enjoy it for that reason alone. But frankly, it wasn’t that bad. I think most people who saw it took the movie too seriously; I saw it as part of the same campy spirit that the original TV show enjoyed, and less like the melodramatic movies of the 90’s.
Undoubtedly, Michelle Pfeiffer’s portrayal of Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) in Batman Returns was vastly more nuanced, foreboding, and impressive than this latest rendition. But let’s face facts, they were not trying to build on that performance or even the history of the previous character. The new Catwoman has: a new name (Patience Phillips), a new boyfriend (Tom Lone), and a new outfit ;-). I think the failures of this movie mostly stem from the choice to strike out in a different direction from the source material. Instead of pulling directly from 40 years of existing plot and dialog, the director and producers took a chance on creating a new story arc for our heroine, and that was a tricky proposition. In leaving behind the old baggage the writers also left behind the emotional pathos and character interactions that had been developed over those last 40 years.
Besides being crippled with a bad plot and mediocre dialog, Catwoman. suffers from bad budget decisions — apparently, after paying Ms. Berry her salary the producers couldn’t afford a decent villain. Hollywood’s current facination with super-hero stories has come with larger-than-life villains played by larger-than-life actors. Since Jack Nicholson as the Joker, we’ve enjoyed Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and Ian McKellen strutting their stuff as super-villains. Sharon Stone and Lambert Wilson are just out of their depth trying to keep this company as the real stars of the superhero epic. And besides, their form of evil just doesn’t compare to world domination or the eradication of mankind.
The result is the new Catwoman. comes across as glib and untroubled, even in passing from death to rebirth. The whole production feels contrived, plastic, and inevitably trivial. We don’t really care about the heros, villains, or the impeding “doom” that is about to be unleashed. Add to the fact that the threat to mankind presented is pretty trivial — ok, totally trivial. All in all the movie feels like a modern sequel to the original series, which suffered from the same flaws. Add a “blam!” here, and a “bloop!” there, and there would have been no question of this version’s heritage.
Bottom line, enjoy it for what it is, a 90 minute diversion starring an incredibly attractive woman. If you want a more melodramatic and compelling version of, then stick with the previous version.