Back to the 3rd Annual Summer Film Follies Fest.
Should this movie rise to the challenge and turn a profit that would deem this movie "Money-Machine" it will be the total and complete destruction of the art of cinema and movie-going. It will rape and pillage not un-like a viking, the calm and peaceful township of the movie theatre.
Now, I don't hate Halle Berry. I thought the role of Storm was well performed. Not so much in X-Men 1, but especially in X2. Swordfish wasn't bad either, and did we mention she won an Academy Award? She's an acredited actress. Which is why it makes absolute no goddamn sense as to why "Tell WB I'll play Catwoman" would ever think to enter her vocabulary. The argument of, "I took the role for the fun of it" is null and void in this discussion. Because one could tell you from the beginning that Catwoman had disaster written on it from the day the first draft of the script was turned in. Can miss Berry tell me that she honestly thought this was going to be hot when she accepted the role? Now I know why she hit that poor pedestrean and fled. She was trying to get out of Catwoman by doing jail time. SORRY!! Don't you watch the news? We don't put celebrities in prison.
The whole thing opens with Halle Berry doing her best impersonation of Uma Thurman in a Kill Bill like opening. Almost like Kill Bill that they should have payed Tarantino money. "This is the story of how I died." Two seconds into the movie and we've already ripped off one of the best films in recent past. Halle Berry is Patience Phillips. A shy, mousy human being who is a struggling artist working for probably the biggest name in comsmetics. George Hedare, played by the Merovingian himself, Lambert Wilson. Again, the only missing from this character is the stereotypical french-aristocratic laugh of, HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW. George's wife Laurel is played by non-other than Sharon Stone. She plays the aging model for the company who'se looks really aren't all that appealing anymore. (Art imitating life?) Her soreness is because George is now courting a younger and more attractive model to take Laurel's place. And boy is Laurel not happy about that. Let's just say they cast the role of 700 year old bitch appropriatley.
Before Patience can go to work the next day, a cat appears on her apartments balcony, teasing her to come outside. When she does the cat has MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARED! No it hasn't, it's just jumped higher up on the ledge and needs to be rescued by Patience. No one else can save it. So she climbs out on the ledge, and balances herself on a rust, dirty, ready to break apart and plummet to the ground window air conditioner. At which point Benjamin Bratt as Detective Tom Lone arrives to save this crazy lady from jumping. Thus the B story is created when Tom Lone asks Patience out for coffee. A semi-fascinating love story of two very boring people. Thrills-Ville.
Hedare Comsmetics on the eve of a huge breakthrough in comsmetic advancement. A cream that doesn't just hide the effects of aging, it reverses it completley. Almost rewriting one's DNA to make whatever comes in contact with it at least 5 years younger. However, the poor test subjects for this make-up have suffered horrorific after-effects. Including migraines, spontanious black outs. And worst of all, deep facial scarring that will leave you looking like a pan of beef stroganhoff. But there's an even scarier side-effect alluded to but not talked about. And who should happen to come upon this information? Patience. Trying to deliver a project she swore she'd have done by midnight. And now the bosses know she's knows, and sends two men to kill her. They end up flushing her down a giant toilet into a drainage ditch. That is so freaking amazing, a huge giant toilet resulting in a drainage ditch is exactly where the careers of everyone involved in this movie are going to end up!
Dead in the mud, Patience is visited by many cats. Like the great scene in Batman Returns when Selena Kyle (Catwoman's REAL name) where tons of alley cats start biting Selena and clawing her, causing her physical pain in order to bring her back to life. This scene with Patience is flooded with cats, but totally sucks ass compared to the one in Batman Returns. The mystic cat that visited her aparment, or at least it's digital double climbs the body of Patience while the score builds to a triumphant climax of brass and flutes. I was half expecting a monkey to he holding up the new king of the jungle on Patience's forhead. Instead, Mystic Cat opens it's mouth and for some goddamn reason the camera goes extreme close-up into the cat's throat while it meow's out some green mystic funk in Patience's face. And when she wakes up she has the amazing abilities to be a cat. And the nightmare begins.
What kills me is at the opening credits they have in big letters for all to see that this movie is "Based on characters by Bob Kane". First of all, that's a big fat flagrant lie! Bob Kane's Catwoman did not have the powers of a cat. She was not bitten by a radioactive cat, she did not get sent to the moon and exposed to radiation by a asteroid and suddenly get cat powers, and she did not get a gamma/cat bomb dropped on her. She is Catwoman because she's a cat burglar and has an affinity to those damn felines. That is why made Bob Kane's Batman characters so damn interesting. Very few of them had any true superpowers. Batman, without the gear and cape was Bruce Wayne. Human. Joker was insane! But still human. Two-Face? Penguine? Riddler? Ventriloquist? Criminals and mad men yes. But they were still just human. And that included Catwoman. She was agile, and sleek, but had no "CAT" powers. With that statement claiming that this load of cat-shit is based on something Bob Kane created is like saying Wing Commander is based on characters created by George Lucas.
The Mystery Cat follows Patience to her apartment where surprisingly she has no idea what has transpired the night before. Thank God though, the cat has a collar on. Which Patience just, didn't have the time to notice until now I guess. She takes the kitty home and the woman identifies the cat as Midnight. And starts to question Patience. Trying to escape the crazy lady, Patience attempts to leave but catches something thrown by Cat Lady. And starts. . . going. . .X-RATED on this thing. I mean she practically soils herself with this thing. Turns out, it's catnip. And it's not sexy, it's not seductive, it's bizarre and creepy and downright disgusting. If my cat ever orgasms when I toss her catnip toy, I will never give her another one again.
Back at the office, she is fired by George after she lets him know what she really things about his company. And her chubby friend Sally, played by Alex Borstein of Family Guy and Mad TV fame helps her with her walk her stuff home, when she collapses in the street for no apparant reason. In the hospital she's fine, and rubs the magic cream created by George onto her face. At least until Patience tosses it into the trash. And then realizes she totally stood up Tom Lone on their first date.
She finds Tom at a school talking to kids about the theories of bad and good when she shows up to apologize. At recess she is challenged to one-on-one B-Ball against Tom. And the two of them start grinding and rubbing and doing some heavy petting while trying to get the ball away from each other. I began to wonder whether or not these two were going to hump in front of all the kids watching them!
"What did you learn at school today Billy?"
"That penetration is easier on the floor of a basketball court than it is on top of a your school desk."
Seemingly 7 hours later, we finally get to the Catwoman portion of the movie. Where she finally dresses up for the part and becomes her alter ego. She then goes all out in a search for those that killed her. First on the list, is Or-Ren Ishii. D'oh!!
The full fledged Catwoman costume is just plain retarded. This costume makes every comic book costume I've ever hated turn into magic and inspired genius next to this thing. I beg for the return of the tank tread material they used on the Green Goblin outfit. Even the costume Dolph Lundgren wore in The Punisher (1989) is acceptable. The only reason this outfit was made, was to lead men into the theatre by their genitals. And really, I don't see that working either.
Patience visits her friend Sally in the hospital. Where she is excited to say, "I've got a present for you!" And produces for Sally a Hershey's bar. GODDAMN IT! Why is it the fat people always get candy as gifts in movies? Why can't the gift ever be, a book. Or maybe a thing of crossword puzzles. What about a CD? Why does it always have to be candy and food!
We've covered the fact that Patience is now the human embodiment of a cat. Manurisms and traits, what have you. The first date her and Tom go on is to a sushi palace. The raw salmon shows up and she shovels that shit into her mouth faster than Tom can watch her. She guzzling them down like a row of shooters. Goddamn Patience. Even cats chew!!
Finally, through all the crap that is this movie we get down to it. The confrontation between Catwoman and Bill. I mean, the person who ordered her death. And (Drum Roll) it's Laruel!!! She ordered Patience to die after she found out about the cosmetics poisoning the people who use it. And Catwoman lays some sort of smack-down on Laurel. Personally, I was waiting for Patience Phillips' attack manuver #2. Ram them with your car and drive away. You can't really make anything out of this epic brawl because all through the movie cinematographer Thierry Arbogast found it necessary to spin the camera every chance available. It began to feel like I was on the tea-cups at Disneyland. I swear to God, I don't ever remember being that dizzy in a movie since Blair Witch. Through all this pounding, there is not a mark on Laurel. And here's the final side effect of the make-up. Long time use makes the wearer's skin as hard as marble. WHAT THE FUCK!!! What did you just say? Hard as marble? Then how the hell are you announciating, and moving your eyebrows up and down, and make those things that look close to emotions! Hard as marble? You have to be shitting me! That's the lousiest story ender I've ever heard!!
And then it happens. Catwoman finally flings Laurel out of a window. And she falls to her death. And Joe and I could barely contain our riotous laughter. It was all we could do to prevent the pent up hystericalness we've suffered for the past 2 hours that just suddenly needed to erupt in a "Point and Laugh" session at the movie screen. Laurel is flung from the top of her high-rise building, and it's a tracking shot of this, dummy, dressed up to look like Sharon Stone. (Insert punch line here) Except this dummy must have weighed a ton. Dropping to the earth, this thing was spinning like a weird mutant dreidle, top, helicoptor toy hybred. She was head over heels about 20 times a second. And when it finally hit the ground, there was no bounce to be had, but rather her boring a hole directly to China.
FINAL ANALYSIS!
The director or should I say turd polisher is Pitof. A man who'se past is linked directly to another horrible flop, Alien Resurrection. Adding this "fine" film to his resume is probably enough credit to get him a job as a Universal Studios Ride Operator in the near future. Directed by Pitof? More like Directed by Pit of Hell.
The line for the next screening was not impressing at all. Thank the Heavens. It failed to even come close to what the weekend blockbusters usually pull in terms of people waiting for movies. I remember seeing a line for Underworld. UNDERWORLD I TELLS YOU! Thankfully the movie-going audiences are wayyyyy smarter than the people in the movies. Seriously, how stupid are these people that they can't tell it's Patience under there? Keep in mind that the man courting Patience is a detective for crying out loud. I'm beginning to think that if I lived in that town I could murder anyone I pleased so long as I had some sunglasses on. And no one would be the wiser.
The acting is as terrible as acting gets, the story was the end result of a kid smashing his helmet into the keyboards of a laptop, and the CGI effects were courtesy of XBOX. This movie has allowed me to forgive and forget about ILM's job on the Scorpion King in Mummy Returns. Can we start over again ILM?
And despite the festering bubbling hate I have for what they've done to the Catwoman character, the costume they've decided to cram her into is just, how can I put it nicely?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
The mask looks like someone stole a giant Sylvester the Cat head from a costume at Magic Mountain Theme Park.
"Thittth ittth the tttthtory of how I died. Ttthufferin' ttttthuckatash!"
I can't pray enough to the mighty movie gods that someone's career whither and die in the burning ashes of this crap. I want the executive who signed the $88 Million dollar check to be locked in a stockade and placed in the middle of Riverside Drive so that passers-by can hurl insults and variteys of vegetables at him. I want Pitof stripped of the title director and forced to hand over his issued camera. And I take pity on anyone, ANYONE who pays to see this movie of their own free will and mind. Because this movie is a giant heap of rotting primate nuts.
EDITOR'S NOTE* Truthbringer did not pay to see this movie. Truthbringer is smarter than that and would not waste 1 red dime to see such an obvious flop. The Batman Animated Series: Season 1 DVD came with a free ticket for said flop. Suckers. Back to the 3rd Annual Summer Film Follies Fest.