Starring Halle Berry as the feline anti-hero, “Catwoman” is arguably the worst thing to ever lay claim to the title “empowering.”
It follows Catwoman — named Patience Phillips instead of Selina Kyle for some godforsaken reason — on her quest to take revenge on the evil cosmetics company that killed her and … this is already not making any sense. It is easy to imagine how difficult it is to watch the movie.
While Berry herself isn’t bad, considering how laughably atrocious the screenplay is, the rest of the cast is awful. Sharon Stone plays our main bad guy, Laurel Hedare, as basically a more boring version of her character from “Basic Instinct” — and it’s plainly uncomfortable. She turns in a performance to rival George Clooney’s Batman in terms of sheer apathy.
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Lambert Wilson plays Hedare’s inept husband, and Benjamin Bratt plays Patience’s love interest, Tom Lone. It feels necessary to reiterate the names in “Catwoman” are ridiculous. The fact that our main character is named Patience almost makes negative sense, which perfectly accompanies her hunky detective boyfriend Tom Lone, who I suspect was named by a kindergartener.
But moving on from the absurd naming procedures, the plot is convoluted to the point of complete meaninglessness. Broadly, it’s another “lady finds her true self” story, but with a superhero twist. Patience starts the movie as a timid, unassertive pushover who lives a pretty sad life — but everything changes when she is killed by her employer.
No, that is not a typo. Patience dies and is reincarnated by the breath of poorly animated cats, and no, this is not a joke. The quality of American cinema would be greatly improved if it was, but this is the world we live in. Since the cat angels’ breath apparently gave her cat powers, Patience now struts around at night with freshly gained confidence and a strange leather singlet that screams “the costume designer had no vision.”
When analyzing this cinematic dung heap, it is necessary to note the fact that this bears precisely no resemblance to the comic it draws influence from. In all other media, Catwoman is Selina Kyle, a seductress cat burglar supervillain who is the apple of Batman’s eye.
But when she becomes Patience Phillips, the Bland Wonder, all of the complexity in her character flies out the window. When your movie can’t even get the main character right, it’s never a great sign.
Honestly, watching 90 minutes of static would probably be less painful than sitting through “Catwoman.” The hackneyed plot and terrible characters put it among the ranks of the all-time worst superhero movies — a shamefully long list. It’s funny the main character is named Patience, because you’ll be losing a lot of it.
