Someone empty the litter box

Continuing my quest to view every DVD in the Los Angeles Public Library catalogue.

Catwoman (2005)

Halle Berry, as Catwoman, wears the cheapest, most laughable Halloween mail order hooker costume, complete with a “cat-helmet” that is at least two sizes too big for her melon (perhaps they thought her Oscar win inflated her noggin).

This is a movie that’s impossible to review, because there’s really NOTHING there. The studio and the producers decided to toss out EVERYTHING from the comic books concerning the Catwoman character (except for Bob Kane’s iron-clad bat-credit). They changed her name, her ethnicity, her job, her origin, the city she lives in, her costume. They changed EVERYTHING. And not one single change resulted in a better character or story. (They probably even thought about changing her into a MAN - while leaving the title as CatwoMan - and passing it off as progressive or forward thinking. But I can hear a marketing exec say, "We think that it would do boffo b.o. in L.A. and San Fran, but it would be a tough sell in the sticks.")

Halle Berry's performance is amateurish at best (she seemed to be channeling the worst Sandra Bullock characters). Benjamin Bratt is like an older James Franco; he's good looking and smiles a lot, but there's not much there. The Merovingian from The Matrix movies was playing the Merovingian from The Matrix movies. Sharon Stone was playing Sharon Stone (isn't her desperation just palpable?). The visual effects were standard issue for a genre movie, lots of camera swooping through the city moves (who thinks those are cool after seeing them a bazillion times now?). The worst effects were the CGI Catwoman figure leaping about. True, it was a better actor than the FAB (Flesh And Blood) Halle Berry, but it took me out of the movie because I was laughing the whole time.

The story concerned flooding the world with defective beauty products. Defective beauty products. Can you fucking believe that?

This movie grossed just over $40 million in the U.S. and Canada. I don’t know how many admissions that breaks down as, but however many it is, SHAME ON ALL OF YOU.

You should have donated that money to charity.