Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.0

Catwoman Blu-ray Movie Review

“Sometimes I’m bad, oh so very bad.”

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater September 11, 2009

So as not to belabor this review, I’m going to go ahead and get all the feline metaphors and puns that could be used to describe Catwoman out of the way up front. Ready? Okay. The script, for one, has been totally declawed. The story should be have been tossed out with last week’s kitty litter. Halle Berry pussy-whips the baddies into submission, but she’s spayed by horrible dialogue and catty one-liners. This spilled milk isn’t worth crying over. It’s hardly purr-fect, purr-poseful, or purr-ceptive, and it’s more purr-functory than anything. Berry’s purr-formance is overly purr-ky, and Catwoman will be a purr-menant fixture on lists of Worst Films purr-petually. Nobody will want to give a home to this mangy, malnourished film, so it might as well be put down. Seriously, not even the Humane Society or the SPCA would give this film a second chance.

This dude's totally going to get cat scratch fever.

Annoyed yet? With that out of my system, really, what happened with Catwoman? There are numerous reasons why films fail, and just as many warning signs that should alert both producers and potential audiences to a movie’s inevitable flop. Catwoman was stuck in development hell for a long time—a telltale portent of no-good—and since Daniel Water first drafted up a screenplay in 1995, some 28 separate writers were attached to the project for rewrites and revisions. It’s the old “too many cooks in the kitchen” problem. Or perhaps a better, more plot appropriate metaphor would be plastic surgery. The more work the film had done—a script tuck here, a dialogue lift there, and the occasional total plot makeover—the more it began to look like a freak-show version of its former self, sagging and bulging in all the wrong places, but utterly in denial. The overwrought dialogue starts from the very first sentence of Halle Berry’s voiceover narration:

“It all started on the day that I died. If there had been an obituary, it would have described the unremarkable life of an unremarkable woman, survived by no one. But there was no obituary, because the day that I died was also the day I started to live.”

As the character of Catwoman has seen numerous origin stories over the course of her nearly 70-year history—she first appeared in 1940’s Batman #1—there’s really no need for Catwoman, the film, to adhere to any rigid canonical bullet points. This version of the character differs the most, however, by having a completely stand-alone story that never once mentions Batman, Gotham City, or any other Catwoman touchstones. There’s a brief wink to Michelle Pheiffer in Batman Returns, but the film seems to cast its heroine, Patience Phillips (Halle Berry, of course), as an entirely new Catwoman, one in a long line of many. The story is pretty simple, even by comic book movie standards. Patience is an in-house advertising artist for Hedare Beauty, a company run by the aquiline George Hedare (Lambert Wilson) and his wife Laurel (Sharon Stone), a middle-aged model and the company’s former “face.” When Hedare Beauty introduces “Beau-line,” a new anti-aging cream, Patience inadvertently discovers some damning information about the product while visiting the production factory—namely, that it melts your face once you stop using it—and while running from the security guards she gets flushed down a sewage tube and out into the bay, where she promptly drowns. If only the film ended there. Ah, but no. When Patience’s body washes on shore, a magical cat—messenger of the Egyptian goddess Bast—breathes on her face, resurrecting Patience with powerful feline attributes. I know, I know—I don’t buy it either, even if my cat’s breath probably could raise the dead. Soon enough, Patience is sleeping on pillows in confined spaces, gnawing on sashimi, and going crazy for nip. The rest of the film finds her exploring her new powers while trying to expose Hedare Beauty’s malicious practices and basically avenging her own murder. Catwoman has always toed a thin line between supervillain and vigilante, and here she plays good girl by day—dating detective Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt), who for some reason can’t figure out that she’s, duh, Catwoman—and bad girl by night, flouting the law with impunity.

If McG has taught me anything, it’s to never trust a director who goes by a single name, and Catwoman’s French helmer Pitof is no exception. The film is basically shot like a hyperactive car commercial, with see-sawing camera movements, a fast-motion, weaving- through-traffic motorcycle sequence, and a median shot length of what must be .2 seconds during the clumsily staged fights. The film is all-style and yet no-style, a boring and plastic display of visual chicanery. The film’s worst attribute, however, has to be the absolutely inane dialogue. I expect a certain amount of sass from Catwoman, who has always been a bit rough-tongued (dammit, was that another cat metaphor?), but Halle Berry induces one cringe after another with one-liners I probably could have dreamed up in 6th grade P.E. class. When Sharon Stone tells her that it’s “game over,” Berry shoots a cocky look and replies, “Guess what? It’s overtime.” Worse, MADtv alum Alex Borstein plays Patience’s guy-obsessed best friend Sally, and anytime she’s onscreen you’ll be tempted to hit the mute button on your remote. Seriously, there needs to be some kind of cinematic war crimes tribunal set up to convict the screenwriters who penned this stuff. By extension, the acting isn’t any better. Stilted line readings abound, particularly from Sharon Stone, who tries to play the glowering ice queen but only succeeds in looking stiff and bored. Halle Berry boggles the mind as well. She goes hilarious over-the-top in trying to seem feline, and she reminds me, more than anything, of Will Ferrell’s cat impression from his audition tape on the Saturday Night Live: Best of Will Ferrell DVD.

Catwoman could have easily become the Showgirls of action films, but it’s just not exploitive enough, not laughably sexy enough, and not bad enough to sustain a cult following. The gulf between so-bad-it’s-good and just-plain-bad is definitely narrow, but Catwoman is planted firmly in a land of safe, dull, predictable inoffensiveness. The film tries to front like it’s all about female empowerment, but really, come on, isn’t Catwoman just a thin excuse to see Halle Berry in bondage gear?

Catwoman Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Catwoman claws onto Blu-ray with a 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer that's far more impressive than a film of this ilk deserves. Sharp, clear, and colorful, the look is everything that that the film—script, dialogue, and characters—is not. The color palette is warm and vivid, going to great lengths to emphasize Halle Berry's deep bronze skin tones. Most of the colors are intentionally over- saturated—see the fire engine red of Catwoman's lipstick, the neon green lighting in George Hedare's office, and the bright rainbow of colors during the nightclub scene. Black levels are very solid throughout, showing only a few mild instances of crush, and the overall image has a nice dimensionality and presence. Some of the CGI is less than impressive, and looks flat in comparison to the "real" surroundings, but this isn't really a transfer issue. There's also very little grain present in the image, but you'll notice no DNR smearing or soupiness. The transfer is fairly sharp— particularly in a few scenes with more heated contrast—and you'll notice plenty of detail, from the masked wrinkles on Sharon Stone's face to the fine textures of Berry's leather get-up. No one should buy Catwoman based on picture quality alone—I'm very tempted to say that no one should buy Catwoman, period—but if this is one of those discs that, for whatever reason, you just have to own, rest assured that the title looks great in high definition.

Catwoman Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Likewise, Catwoman's every throaty purr is well rendered with the help of a nicely tuned Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track. You've heard bigger, better, more detailed mixes, but you might be surprised by how substantial this track is, especially given that the film is flat-out awful. There's a decent amount of activity in the rear channels, lending the film a modestly engaging audio experience throughout. Gunshots ping from one speaker to another, a whole sound engineer's toolbox worth of swooshes pan neatly, and place-establishing ambience is subtle but present. I even noticed a few foley effects as particularly impressive—specifically the tinkling of glass on a marble floor and the sound of a chain being dragged across asphalt. And despite the sometimes-hectic soundscape, I never felt the dialogue was buried in the mix. The track also boasts a well weighted low-end, which gives some sonic gravity to all the silliness otherwise on display.

Catwoman Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Many Faces of Catwoman (SD, 29:44)
A somewhat creepy Eartha Kitt hosts this retrospective of Catwoman's career in comics and on both the big and small screens. Featuring interviews with a variety of comic book experts as well as ex-Catwomen Julie Newmar, Lee Merriweather, Adrienne Barbeau, and Michelle Pfieffer, the program culminates with an extended look at Halle Berry's take on the iconic feline foe. Worth a watch, I guess, if you're into the character.

Behind-the-Scenes Documentary: HBO First Look (SD, 13:02)
This is your average HBO promo piece, with a few talking heads and a smattering of behind-the- scenes footage intercut with final scenes from the film. Entirely skip-able.

Chase Me: 2003 Animated Short (SD, 6:21)
Originally an inclusion on the Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman direct-to-video release, this short film features Batman chasing Catwoman through the streets of Gotham, all set to a pretty terrible jazz score. There are lots of jaggies in the image as well.

Additional Scenes and Alternate Ending (SD, 6:25)
Don't expect any game-changing revelations here. If anything, you'll be surprised that the screenwriters could come up with an alternate ending that was actually lamer than the original.

Theatrical Trailer (SD, 1:58)

Teaser Trailer (SD, 00:59)

Catwoman Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Catwoman. It's terrible. You know it, and I know it. It looks and sounds good in high definition, but don't buy it unless you want your Blu-ray collection tainted by a distinct, ammonia- like, cat piss stench. I'd only recommend a rental if you can muster up some friends and give the film a proper Mystery Science Theater-style lampooning. Otherwise, steer clear.