DC Saturdays #23 - Catwoman (2004)

There are some weeks when I really enjoy doing this blog. I might come across something I saw back in the day like the Richard Donner "Superman" films or the Tim Burton "Batman" films and fall in love with them all over again. Or I might find a really good film that I missed at the time like "Spiderman 2" or the first two "X-Men" films and really enjoy it. And then there's weeks like this where I have to review something that has a reputation for being a truly awful film but somehow even I find that I wasn't prepared for just how terrible. Films like "Daredevil", "Steel", "Hulk", "Ghost Rider", "Supergirl" and now "Catwoman"

"Catwoman" has a reputation for being one of the worst comic book tie-in films of all time and managed to sweep the board at the 2005 Razzie awards. You may remember it for the fact that Halle Berry who was in the title role (and after being one of the better things about the first two X-Men movies as storm you have to ask - what on earth was she thinking?!) actually turning up to collect her award in person and basically admitting that the film was an absolute pile of sh*te. And now we get to find out for ourselves. Truly, there is no God.

You know things aren't promising when the film gets off to a bad start by getting its main character's name wrong. As anyone with a passing acquaintance with the Batman films will tell you, Catwoman's name is Selina Kyle. Except not in this film where she's known as Patience Phillips (and I have to ask, what kind of a stupid name is that?!). Patience is a graphic designer for a cosmetics company called Hedare and works for an arrogant uncaring boss George Hedare who has her working on a package design for the company's new anti-aging cream Beau-line. The only crumb of comfort is that she shares an office with a stereotype hyperactive friendly gay guy and her best friend Sally who's basically a walking "Sex And The City" bad stereotype.

Patience also has a crush on a police officer, Tom Lone, who she meets when he helps her down from a window ledge at her apartment block after she gets stuck out there trying to rescue a stray cat. Feminists be warned, you may well be tempted to put a brick through your television screen after watching the opening 15-20 minutes of this film such is the degree of lazy stereotyping here and I honestly wouldn't blame you.

Having been asked to redesign the packaging at the last moment by George, Patience ends up working till midnight the following night and because there are no drivers working that late, takes the documents over to the company lab herself. However, while there she ends up eavesdropping on a conversation between George's spurned wife Laurel (formerly the company's main model and played by Sharon Stone) and chief lab scientist Slavicky who has concerns that the Beau-Line cream is toxic and could have dangerous side effects. Laurel, however, has been using it for years and doesn't see what the problem is.

Unfortunately, klutz that she is, Patience trips over something on her way out leading Laurel to send the security guards after her. She attempts to escape through a water pipe but the guards simply seal it off and flush her out, blasting her into the lake from about 100 feet up and killing her. However, as she's washed up on the shore, the stray cat from earlier in the film appears again with a bunch of its buddies and they surround her while doing the alleycat chorus thing which causes Patience to be resurrected. Except that she's now started to exhibit cat-like characteristics - sleeping on shelves, eating tuna out of cans, walking along the back of the sofa, hissing at dogs, crapping in a litter tray etc. (okay, I may have just made the last one of those up)

Sacked from her job after failing to hand the designs in on time (but earning the respect of the rest of the office after telling George to go swivel), Patience is visited by the cat again who takes her to its owner, an Egyptologist names Ophelia Powers. Ophelia explains to Patience that she has been resurrected as a Catwoman with superpowers.

This leads to her exploring the city at night dressed in black leather (initially a jacket and jeans but later into what can best be described as a half-catsuit because, hey, nothing says "strong female lead" like dressing her up as though she's just spent the evening working down the red light district) in a series of sequences featuring CGI so bad and dated it looks like it was done on a Windows 95 PC. Have I mentioned how painfully bad this film is yet? Well, I'll do so again - this film is painfully bad.

Patience is also continuing to build her relationship with Tom who's starting to get suspicious that she may be hiding something especially when she helps him save a group of kids from a collapsing ferris wheel on a date at the local fairground. The pair come to blows after Catwoman's enquiries lead her back to Laurel who informs her that George was probably the one behind all the subterfuge with Beau-Line and trying to off both Patience and Slavicky (whose body Catwoman discovers at the lab making her chief suspect). Catwoman tracks George down to the opera where he's taken a younger model from the company on a date but the police turn up before she can question him leading her to have a brief skirmish with Tom backstage before escaping.

Returning to the Hedare mansion for a debrief, Catwoman discovers that Laurel has murdered George for his infidelity and has placed the blame on her so that she can take out her two biggest headaches in one go. Patience ends up arrested by Tom when she returns to her apartment and is taken in for questioning then put in a cell. However, the cat who resurrected her earlier shows up and she manages to escape by contorting herself and squeezing through the cell bars.

Tom has also headed back to the Hedare mansion after realising there were some inconsistencies in Lauren's story. She tries to shoot him but Catwoman turns up and, after beating up her goons, the pair have a showdown. However, Laurel has used so much Beau-Line that her skin is diamond-hard and she's pretty much indestructible. However, Catwoman has diamond claws which manage to scratch her face leading to her suddenly aging rapidly. She falls out of a window and after seeing herself reflected in the glass, opts to fall to her death rather than take Catwoman's hand to safety.

The film ends with Patience and Tom deciding that they can't really continue their relationship and Patience going back to her Catwoman ways by walking off into the full moon wiggling her arse a lot. Yup...no exploitation here, honest guv.

We've had some really dreadful films while doing this DC blog but "Catwoman" has officially managed to knock "Steel" off the golden turkey spot after just three episodes. I dunno what the worst thing about this film is - the fact that it gets even the most basic things about the character, like her name, wrong? The script which is so inept that an actual cat could probably have done a better job at writing it (a point I made to my two when they started gathering round the TV during the "alleycat chorus" resurrection scene) The hideously dated CGI which just looks cheap? The supremely wooden acting? Well, all of those are bad but I think the thing that gets under my skin about it is that it purports to be a film with a strong ass-kicking female lead but it's basically just an excuse to shove Halle Berry in what can best be described as a lapdancer's Catwoman costume for an hour and a half and get her to crawl about on all fours and wiggle her arse a lot while most of the female characters in it are characterised as either clueless ditzes or jealous harridans. In an age where characters like Captain Marvel and Black Widow (even DC's recent Wonder Woman film, despite its flaw of being a bit over-long for its own good) have shown that it is possible to write in female superhero leads who can go toe-to-toe with the male ones without having to rely on their T&A as their defining characteristic, it makes films like this just seem horribly dated and suspect. I mean, I know you could arguably say the same about "Elektra" which came out about the same time but for all its faults, at least there Jennifer Garner's character gave you the impression that she was tough and independent and could look after herself (plus it had fight sequences that actually looked half-decent unlike this stinker.

Unsurprisingly the Catwoman franchise was mercifully killed off after this first effort and Halle Berry would go back to making decent films again with the character resurfacing (this time played by Anne Hathaway) in "The Dark Knight Rises" in 2010 and handled much better. Unless you're massively into self-torture though, give this abomination a very wide berth.

FINAL RATING: 🐱🐱 (2/10)

CURRENT DC FILM TABLE

1. Batman Returns (1992) (9/10)
2. Batman (1989) (8/10)
3. Superman (1978) (8/10)
4. Superman 2 (1980) (8/10)
5. Batman (1966) (8/10)
6. Road To Perdition (2002) (7/10)
7. Batman Forever (1995) (6/10)
8. Superman 3 (1983) (5/10)
9. Swamp Thing (1982) (5/10)
10. The New Wonder Woman (1975) (5/10)
11. Superman and the Mole Men (1951) (5/10)
12. The Flash 2 - Revenge Of The Trickster (1991) (4/10)
13. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) (4/10)
14. The Flash 3 - Deadly Nightshade (1991) (4/10)
15. Wonder Woman Returns (1977) (4/10)
16. The Flash (1990) (4/10)
17. Wonder Woman (1974) (3/10)
18. Batman & Robin (1997) (2/10)
19. The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) (2/10)
20. Superman 4 - The Quest For Peace (1987) (2/10)
21. Justice League of America (1997) (2/10)
22. Supergirl (1984) (2/10)
23. Steel (1997) (2/10)
24. Catwoman (2004) (2/10)

NEXT WEEK: Constantine hits the big screen and gets moved from Manchester to Los Angeles with Keanu Reeves in the main role. Erm...