Review

Review Date: 25-July-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Catwoman (2004)

I have heard people deem a movie so bad it was good, but it wasn't until "Catwoman" that I fully understood what that means. Like a child gawking at something frightening but irresistibly naughty, I was bowled over by this ludicrous paean to female empowerment (written by men* and directed by some ridiculous fool who goes by the name of Pitof); I was, in fact, flabbergasted that "Catwoman" actually exists. And yet (now I'm blushing) I flirted with the idea of giving this flick a "Juicy" rating, despite (or because of) the fact that it plays like geek summer stock on the verge of soft porn; and I might have done so if the one sex scene hadn't been so woefully skimpy (Pitof is such a tease!), and if I hadn't been forced to watch Halle Berry huffing a ball of catnip.

I suppose it was inevitable that a woman would be aligned with a cat in the pseudo-mythological realm of superhero comics, since both creatures have somehow got the rap of being vain, imperious, and enigmatically powerful. (I guess that means a man would be aligned with a spider because ... he's all hands?) Not that Catwoman, at least in the movie, can be called a superhero. No, she's merely the recently erupted alter id of poor little Patience Philips (Berry), an artist with the most inconceivably hideous wardrobe who is forced to prostitute her talent to pay the bills, and whose disillusionment or, erm, something renders her hopelessly meek and downtrodden. But when Patience is murdered for overhearing the deep, dark secret of her employers, cosmetic magnates George and Laurel Hedare (Lambert Wilson and Sharon Stone), she is granted an additional set of lives by an Egyptian Mau and rises up with a new personality that takes no prisoners and brooks no disrespect (and exhibits a strong fondness for White Russians without vodka, Kahlua, or ice).

The reborn Patience professes to have revenge on her mind, but savvy viewers can discern that she really wants to use her newfound powers to do what all women want to do, namely (a) rob a jewelry store, (b) don black leather and stilettos, (c) ditch the handbag and take up a whip, and (d) bed Benjamin Bratt. And so she does, god bless her, although it makes her head spin in the clear light of day to think what bold things she has perpetrated by night. Because, you see, this isn't one of those stories about someone receiving enormous power and integrating it into her everyday moral character. This is a story about a woman receiving enormous power and, after a brief bout with resultant schizophrenia, using it to roar.

(And, lest we ladies in the audience mope that it's fine and good for someone who died to have all the fun, there's the heartening image of Patience's best friend, played by Alex Borstein, who is big and sassy and hooks herself a doctor.)

Perhaps the comic books manage to weave a weighty, compelling tale out of Catwoman's resurrection and its aftermath, but the filmmakers don't seem to take her seriously enough to try. (Her nemeses make malignant facial cream, for Pete's sake — couldn't they at least plot to take over a small city?) Pitof's chief concern is with the look of the movie, and he does achieve distinction in a monstrously cheesy way (the special effects are particularly bad), putting absolutely no check on the hideous dialogue, atrocious acting, and utter lack of anything resembling substance. In fact, he goes out of his way to contribute to the silliness of the proceedings with a jaw-droppingly absurd scene in which Berry and Bratt play one-on-one B-ball in da hood, reeking of the influence of market demographics. One can only wonder what the scene would have looked like if Ashley Judd had taken the lead as originally planned; would she and her (lighter-skinned?) paramour have tested each other's mettle by riding a mechanical bull or engaging in a hush-puppy-eating contest? I guess we'll never know.

Ah, but throughout it all is the pulsating throb of techno-somethingorother music, the imploring look of Berry's enormous brown eyes (I'm one of the few people who looked high enough on her body to notice them), and the insistent mantra of feminine emancipation described by one character (who has lots of books, so must be right) as deriving from woman's duality, nurturing and dangerous. And it got to me: more than once I found myself grinning like a certain well-known feline from Cheshire at just how energetically puerile it was. If Patience Philips can claim that the best thing that ever happened to her was dying, "Catwoman" can claim that the best thing that ever happened to it was being astonishingly, decadently bad.

*After publishing this review, I realized that this statement sounds like the sort of sexist opinion I pride myself on neither expressing nor harboring. I did not mean to imply that men cannot imagine or depict the experience of women, but rather that the portrayal of Catwoman's liberation follows a formula commonly ascribed to men's unenlightened, sexually fueled, outside-looking-in perspective. I understand that this formula is widely embraced by both genders.

Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.