Movie Review
"Catwoman": No amount of Kitty Litter could save this stinker

By Ted Fry
Special to The Seattle Times

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Now that the tremendously entertaining "Spider-Man 2" has become the benchmark by which all other big-budget emotional action movies will be judged — and not just those dredged from comic books — it hardly seems fair to make a comparison with the washout that is "Catwoman."

Whether we're talking a fantasy fight between the two superhero characters (yes, the former "Batman" villain has been recast here as a virtuous do-gooder) or the very real box-office battle, Spidey couldn't help but kick serious Cat butt.

Most respectable comic-book plots rely on a genius scientist gone insane, an alien invader or the like as villainous foil. In "Catwoman," the bad guy is a cosmetics company. Their new product, "Beau-Line," is about to turn the women of the world into face-cream junkies who will become grotesque monsters should they discontinue daily application. Later we discover that Beau-Line can also empower women with the invulnerability of, well, a superhero — again, unless they stop buying, buying, buying.

Movie review Showtimes and trailer * "Catwoman," with Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone, Lambert Wilson, Frances Conroy. Directed by Pitof from a script by John Brancato, Michael Ferris and John Rogers. 100 minutes. Rated PG-13 for action violence and some sensuality. Several theaters.

The evil brand managers are the husband-and-wife owners of Hedare Industries (HI), who despise each other as much as they love Beau-Line's profit potential. Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone) is the aging supermodel face of HI, who's about to be cast aside for a younger archetype. George Hedare (Lambert Wilson, best known as Merovingian from "The Matrix" series) plans to upgrade to the new model on a personal level, too, which is certainly no surprise to his wife.

But Laurel turns out to be the über Beau-Line beast, as we learn when she and Catwoman go mano a mano in the compulsory finale, which ends up a literal face-off for the Beau-Line-less Laurel. It's astonishing that this ultimate catfight is far less thrilling than it sounds.

An equal lack of thrills goes for almost all the action sequences, many of which rely on the same kind of computer-generated swoops, leaps, crouching rebounds and soaring flights of CG fancy that gave believable life to Spider-Man. Catwoman's cat-power rip-offs are a lot less limber not only in technological precision, but also in artistic execution.

Some of the blame goes to the script, but director Pitof (is that Mr. Pitof?) displays a truly uninspired lyrical vision in how his heroine became who she is and why she engages in the vague behavior she does.

The mousy pre-Catwoman Patience Phillips is a flunky in the HI art department. Because of some mystical duality in her womanly nature, she's been under surveillance by a cat named Midnight. Midnight is of the rare Egyptian Mau breed, and she tests Patience by lurking around her dingy apartment and basically giving her the heebie-jeebies. When Patience discovers the toxic secret of Beau-Line and is murdered by HI goons, the supernatural feline gives her its breath of rebirth, thereby resurrecting Patience as Catwoman.
 
According to Midnight's mysterious keeper, Ophelia ("Six Feet Under's" Frances Conroy), there have been many Catwomen since ancient history (we get flashes of this legend under the title sequence, too). Ophelia may also be one of the mystical Catwomen, but she seems more like an ordinary crazy catwoman whose funky old house smells like too many overused litter boxes.

As the extremely obligatory love interest, Benjamin Bratt embarrasses himself less than Halle Berry, who is variously required to wolf canned tuna, sashimi and cream. Her nadir comes when she's compelled to undaintily smear her face with catnip.

But then there's the cat-o-nine-tails whip, the skimpy leather suit and the Halle Berry strut. For a lot of people, that's all they'll really need to know about "Catwoman."

Ted Fry: tedfry@earthlink.net