How to describe Catwoman? Well I think my one line summary is fairly to the point. There was nothing horrifically bad about the film, it just wasn't any good. The storyline to begin with was slightly nicked from Batman Returns where a mousy woman finds out her bosses secret, is killed, brought back to life by moggies, wears leather. I guess the whole back story of catwomen covered that one up a bit, but still they could have come up with something a little better. It would be unfair to compare Halle Berry to Michelle Pfeiffer because the characters are actually different in the way they react to the fact that they have these new powers. Selina was more hell bent on eliminating her killer and went quite nuts because of it. Patience seemed more determined to just bring down the empire of Hedare. Her revenge just didn't seem as believable.
The action sequences where real people were involved were fairly OK but the computer generated ones were distracting because it was so easy to tell when they actually occurred. I'm beginning to get slightly annoyed with film makers constant reliance on computers to have action sequences. I know in some cases it would be physically impossible to have any stunt person perform what is required, but they should limit the amount of times that impossible stunts need to be performed. Trouble is in catwoman when Halle Berry was performing her own stunts she was slow and jerky. The final fight at the end was a fine example of this. It almost seemed like they were just fighting in a set patten, following the rehearsals slowly and methodically. Now on to the acting ability of the lead characters. Halle Berry can be quite good when she knows the film is going to be successful, there was nothing wrong with her performances in both X-men films and Die Another Day, but she just seemed so wooden in Catwoman. But if it was possible Sharon Stone actually lived up to her name and had about as many facial expressions as a granite statue. Maybe that was part of the character who was wearing so much of that face cream that she couldn't actually move her face, we will never know. Benjamin Bratt seemed almost non-existent in this, just really going along with everything and not really having much to do with anything at all.
In summary, this film had so much potential to be a great action comedy that didn't have to take itself seriously like the Charlie's Angels films have managed to succeed in doing. But with a thin plot and terrible acting it was never going to be. Basically this is just a film centred on Halle Berry and the fact that she is hot property. She had better watch it though, she has done a couple of turkeys since winning that Oscar and with 6 films lined up between now and next year we could become so saturated with her that we will eventually tire.
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