What better way to start off the best series, “Chicks Who Don’t Want Flowers for Valentine’s Day,” than with the worst movie, Catwoman! Catwoman has earned herself a spot in my series because she is a kick ass female, despite what the movie showed us. I don’t understand how Catwoman had so many good actors like Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, and Benjamin Bratt and yet sucked so hard it created a black hole the size of Jupiter. This film was nominated for 7 Razzies and won 4 for worst picture, actress, director, and screenplay. Now doesn’t that sound like a film you want to watch?
Halle Berry plays Patience, a regular ol’ timid gal who designs ads for a beauty cream that is supposed to not only stop signs of aging but also reverse them. She discovers the deadly secret that the cream will make your skin decay if you stop using it, and the head of the beauty line gives an order to kill her. I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to rush out and buy some face cream! Yay! Mummy face! Anyway, Miss Patience bites the dust until a cat breathes life back into her. I’m not kidding. A cat walks up to her face and just about gives her mouth to mouth. Patience comes back to life feeling like a new woman, a catwoman.
Everything about Catwoman was bad: the acting, story, action. You name it and it was bad. However, I wasn’t ever bored with this film and that’s my number one thing I can’t stand about a film. If a film is boring than it has committed the worst crime possible. Movies are here to entertain us, even if they are occasionally stupid and crazy. But, I digress. Catwoman could have been so much better and yet it wasn’t. This is one film I wouldn’t mind seeing a remake of…as long as they make it better anyway. But how could it get any worse?
Despite all the awfulness, Catwoman did attempt to give us a strong female superhero. You do get to see a girl who is shy and gets walked all over by everyone only to wake up and become a stronger woman. She stands up for herself and takes matters into her own hands. She beats up multiple guys at the same time and repeatedly gives the cops the ol’ slipperoo. She even turns down her love interest at the end of the film because she is a cat now and wants to be free (I can’t not laugh at how silly that is).
- “Not even dance music could make Catwoman any better,” says the cat.
So you’d best not be getting Catwoman any flowers this Valentine’s Day. If you want to win her over you’d best stick to a leather outfit, whip, or another cat to play with. And don’t get her chocolate either. The fastest way to this kitty’s heart would be with milk.
Time Until Action Starts: ~ 19 minutes.
Big Bad Baddies: Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone)
Best Bad Line: “Meow!” You would have to hear how Berry delivers this one. Honestly, you have to hear most of the lines to believe how bad they are.
Best Kill: Big baddie, Hedare is fighting Catwoman. Hedare has one advantage: she’s been using the face cream so her face is as hard as marble and she doesn’t feel a thing. That doesn’t stop Catwoman though. They have a pretty lengthy fight before Hedare fall out onto a ledge. Catwoman tries to save her but she falls off of the top of the skyscraper and lands in the lobby. CRUNCH!!
Best Explosion: None that I recall. You fail Catwoman!
Action Rating: 2 Crazy Cat Ladies, out of 5
Illustration by Alex Langley. Rocket Llama World Headquarters
This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!
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Is it wrong to say that I still don’t have an urge to see this movie even though you’ve made it very enticing. To me the worst movie that I’ve ever seen was ‘Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo’ but even it had an explosion. I think. Maybe it was pyrotechnics. I even walked out of the theater on that one, but watched it 20 years later in a fit of nostalgia. Maybe I’ll do that with Cat Woman. Give me 20 years.
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Oh was this a painful film. Even seeing Halle Berry slink around in skin tight leather wasn’t worth having to suffer through this story. So many wonderful years of comics stories to draw from and we get a woman brought back to life with cat breath!
What was Halle Berry thinking when she made this stinker? She should stick with Storm in the X-men series.
I’ve never seen it, honestly, but… now I really want to.
I’d heard it was called Catwoman but from what I’d heard had no connection to the character from the Batman comics so i was going to hate it from the outset but then when it came out i how awful was so knew i wouldn’t see it in the cinema. Finally i saw it when it came on TV, well i say i saw it i turned off after an hour, i thought it was just too bad to continue with there for me anyway are no redeeming qualities to it at all.
For me it was boring which is a the worst thing for a movie to be but this did bore me the dialogue is dull and banal the attempts at humour fall flat.it is just a dull predictable ridiculous piece of crap. So where does the fault lie in my opinion with the script writer from the hour i saw it was part by the numbers attempt at a superhero film and part creating action heroine but falls flat at both as a superhero film it simply steals from better ones that came before it and screws them up, at creating an action heroine it stinks why must before being licked back to life by magical cats, dear god magical cats seriously uuuhhh, Halle Berry’s character be so weak and put upon that she was just a caricature then when she becomes Catwoman from what i saw it consists of her simply making bad cats noises and jumping about and some bad CGI.
Besides from memory seems like this whole magic cats bring her back to life is stolen wholesale from Batman Returns where Michelle Pfieffer was at least playing Selina Kyle/Catwoman albeit she was a bumbling downtrodden weakling until murdered by her boss and licked back to life by cats, so the awful plot wasn’t even original making the script writer not just terrible but a talentless hack with no originality whatsoever.
I have no idea what drew Halle, Sharon Stone, Benjamin Bratt and Frances Conroy (Ma Fisher from Six Feet Under) all wasted in this horrible crap, to my mind this movie should still be winning the razzie for worst movie even all these years later no movie since this could possibly have been worse it is that bad i hate it.
@John: The answer to your rhetorical question is, Money.
The simple reason this movie failed is because it denied any connection whatsoever to Batman. Taking the story of her origin from Year One and running with it from her POV would’ve been the way to go. There are some at The WB (can we still call it that? 🙂 who don’t get iconic characters, and unfortunately, they’re the blue suited penguins that David Mamet referenced in his memo….
i saw it on bad cable television one day when i was extremely bored, and i have to say, i didn’t like it, i would have never left that gorgeous guy go cause i wanna be free, and the catwoman costume was ugly, those cat ears look awful, not even like a cat.Catwoman from Batman as Michelle Pfeiffer, that was an awesome Catwoman.I wanted to see that movie, what happened to her ? Why didn’t they make a remake of that? It’s ok to have numerous Batman remakes,love’em, bu still, no love for the kitty.;))
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I’m still pretty happy with Catwoman’s appearance in Batman Returns. Saw it again recently and I love some of the lines – “It’s the so-called “normal” guys who always let you down. Sickos never scare me. Least they’re committed.”
Her introductory scene where she trashes a department store is great fun. It’s easily my favourite of the Bat-films, just down to how it takes the character of Selina and runs off in an entirely different direction from the books.
Berry was born Maria Halle Berry, though her name was legally changed to Halle Maria Berry at the age of five. Berry’s parents selected her middle name from Halle’s Department Store, which was then a local landmark in her birthplace of Cleveland, Ohio.