by Brendan Foley
Two Cents
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
Yeah, we got nothing.
Considered by many to be among the worst superhero films ever (if not one of the worst films ever) 2004’s Catwoman rode a toxic wave of negative buzz and fandom disgruntlement (the film’s version of Catwoman bears virtually no resemblance to any of the many, many incarnations of the character through the decades) to terrible reviews and even worse box office.
But surely, we naive fools might wonder, it can’t be that bad? People have to have been exaggerating, right?
It is. They weren’t.
Starring Academy Award winner Halle Berry, Catwoman is so bad, it drove one of our most stalwart contributors to beg off from the column for a week.
https://twitter.com/elizs/status/690727802216120320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Academy Award winner Halle Berry’s Catwoman is so bad, it drove multiple people to straight-up begin plotting how to kill us [Editor’s Note: Specifically they were plotting to kill Brendan {with a DVD of Catwoman, which seems petty to an excessive degree}].
Catwoman contains such remarkable moments as Academy Award winner Halle Berry face-fucking a ball of kitty litter, a one-on-one basketball game staged as a zero-gravity dry-hump, Sharon Stone with diamond-hard skin, and Academy Award winner Halle Berry making out with a cat and getting super powers from it.
Catwoman, folks. We are sorry from the bottom of our hearts. Please don’t murder us with Catwoman DVDs. [Editor’s note: While I think most of our contributors were in on the joke, in case there was any confusion, this week’s pick was in fact suggested by me, not Brendan. More on that in my entry below. — Austin]
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
With Hail, Caesar! promising to deliver our semi-annual instance of delightfully baffling Coen Bros. magic, we decided to make next week’s pick one of their more controversial efforts.
2004’s The Ladykillers was largely dismissed on initial release and seemed to signal the nadir of the fall of the once impervious-to-failure Coen Bros. descent from Oscar glory and cult film godhood before they roared back to life with No Country for Old Men.
But in the time since, The Ladykillers (which is currently streaming on Netflix Instant) has been subject to a reappraisal from some corners, regarded as an unjustly maligned gem of black comedy. What do you think? Is The Ladykillers the sort of dark humor that keeps you cackling or is it a big swing and a miss from two of modern cinema’s most unpredictable pranksters? You tell us!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
Our Guests
Trey Lawson:I told myself before watching Catwoman that I would try to find one nice thing to say about it, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make that happen. With any other script, Halle Berry could have been an inspired casting choice. Unfortunately, what we have here is Catwoman in name only. Even setting aside how weird it is for Warner Bros. to adapt Catwoman to film without Batman or Gotham City, there are a lot of bad ideas on display. Catwoman is a film that desperately wants to be campier than it really is, and the only person who seems to realize that is Sharon Stone (who appears to be have a blast hamming it up as the film’s primary villain). Even for 2004 the overused CGI is distractingly awful — although I will admit that I found the close-ups of CGI cats to be hilarious (does that count as a nice thing? I think it’s close enough for me). In addition, with or without CGI the action sequences are both ineptly shot and staged. Most damning of all, Catwoman feels like a film whose every story beat and character quirk was decided by committee. Catwoman’s purrrrfect feline tendencies, the awesomely unnecessary basketball and carnival scenes with the detective love interest played by the unbelievably dense Benjamin Bratt, and the convoluted mythological Catwoman origin suggest that the film was conceived by a person or persons who had no idea what makes the character interesting in the first place. I can’t say with absolute certainty that Catwoman is the worst comic book film ever made, but it’s definitely bad enough to be avoided at all costs.
P.S. This is all your fault Brendan and I blame you for making me revisit this awful movie [Editor’s Note: Not my fault. Maybe keep it a little less personal fellas, come on now]. (@T_Lawson)
Jaime Burchardt:No. No no no. Any attempts to make this a regular TC entry was eliminated within the first 10 minutes of this. In fact, if I had the chance, I’d After-Effects the shit of this piece so it could look as shiny and fake as everyone looked in this film. But grudging aside, let’s face it. The character of Catwoman has deserved a solo film since the early 1990’s. That character, and the fans, should have received a considerate, faithful representation of just how cool she is. We waited all that time, and what did they give us? A lame villain dabbling in “deadly” cosmetics, a cop so dumb the cast of Law & Order should’ve stepped in on principle, and a costume that a 10-year-old on Red Bull could’ve designed better. This is all unforgivable. Even if Halle Berry seemed to be having fun, no one else would have on that set. At least they shouldn’t have. Damn you Foley for choosing this film [Editor’s Note: I have feelings too, guys, Jesus]. There’s my TC, and I’ll see you in hell! (@jaimeburchardt)
Brendan Agnew:Catwoman isn’t so much a bad movie as a circus attraction. You don’t see Catwoman to just watch a cinematic misfire, you go to gawk at how purrfectly every thing that could have gone wrong not only goes well past “wrong,” but nose-dives right off the edge of the fucking map into a total cat-astrophe.
(No, I’m not sorry for the puns, I WATCHED FUCKING CATWOMAN FOR YOU PEOPLE)
Catwoman makes you long for the restraint of Batman Returns and the nuanced femme fatale portrayals of the Arkham games. Every basic decision is the wrong one, from the tin-eared script to the garrishly hideous visual design to the casting to the direction all coalescing into a “Greatest Hits” of awful genre moments. You think the playground fight in Daredevil was bad? This tops it. Peter’s emo makeover in Spider-man 3? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Wolverine’s CGI claws in Origins? …Okay, those are still terrible, but look at this cat. LOOK. AT. THIS. CAT.
And to add insult to 100 minutes of dick-punching, you can see how this might have grown from a good idea. Every 20 minutes or so, Catwoman comes close to genuinely solid feminist commentary… only to immediately barf a hairball all over it. (@BLCAgnew)
The Team
Justin:In spite of being a rabid Batman fan with a large tattoo of The Caped Crusader, who tries to consume any and all Batman related media, I have avoided this film until now. Perhaps, it’s actually because of my Batman love that I stayed away, fearing it would tarnish my favorite superhero in some way. If there is anything positive to say about the 2004 Halle Berry vehicle Catwoman, it is that it does nothing to hurt the Batman legacy… mostly because it has zero connection to Batman in any shape or form.
In this film, Selina Ky… er… no, some other completely unrelated and unconnected woman named Patience dies and becomes the Catwoman due to some ill-explained mythos that has no ties to the comic books in any way that I can tell. The catsuit and the wearer of the catsuit do work well to create a modern sex symbol that is a solid update of the sex kitten vibe always present in the character, but that’s surely not enough to make a solid connection between the true Catwoman backstory and this filth.
And to “Pitof”… you have to earn one-word-name status before you claim it. You’re not Seal, Madonna, or Prince, so knock that shit off. (@thepaintedman)
Frank:In terms of the character of Catwoman, no one will ever top Michelle Pfeiffer’s mentally unhinged anti-hero take on the iconic figure in Batman Returns. The actress’ characterization scored to such a degree that her performance immediately became legendary and is without question, part of the reason Halle Berry’s Catwoman is so atrocious. Part of the reason.
The rest can be chalked up to a lazy script, which features a deadly beauty cream at the heart of its plot, misjudged direction and an overall production that just reeks like it was put together by a committee.
Berry is not as bad as her Razzie win would lead you to believe, but her over-commitment to such trite material is a bit laughable. It’s Sharon Stone as the film’s villain who has the right idea, taking full advantage of the fact that she’s in a truly silly film. Any movie that casts a formidable actress like Stone to play a heavy will not be disappointed and as a result, her scenes, though far from perfect, remain curiously watchable. In fact it’s her presence and good sportsman-like attitude which make the final extended fight sequence decent and actually fun to watch. After all, how many times in movie history are we going to be able to watch two of cinema’s most beautiful stars get into a cat fight (pun intended)?
Watch this movie if you choose, but afterwards, I suggest checking out A&E’s 2004 Biography episode on Catwoman; an interesting portrait on the character’s origins, symbolism and place in popular culture with commentary from Pfeiffer, Berry and the other legendary actresses who have helped bring one of the comic world’s most indelible characters to life. (@frankfilmgeek)
Austin:Have you noticed? Two Cents has picked up its second wind lately. Thanks to several of our amazing readers and pals who have become a reliable stable of guests, it’s starting to turn back into what I believe it was envisioned to be in the first place — an ongoing discussion. Sure, Catwoman is a terrible movie, but the lively banter and death threats that surrounded this week’s pick are the substance of what differentiates Two Cents as a film club rather than just a collection of opinions. So yeah, I admit to putting everyone through the wringer this week — and make no mistake, this was my idea, not Brendan’s — but you’re all stronger for it (except Liz, but that’s OK).
Anyway, Catwoman. Terrible CGI, a nonsensical mythos, and dozens of groan-inducing cat gags, all set to a constant soundtrack of ear-bleeding generic pop songs. And gosh, that catnip scene. Halle Berry is an incredibly beautiful woman and her costume comes so close to being sexy, but then there’s that ridiculous cat mask with the Mouseketeer ears. Laughably bad. (@VforVashaw)
Brendan: Say this for Catwoman: it’s amusingly bad as opposed to boring bad. Between Pitof’s obsession with never letting the camera stay still for longer than a fucking second, the soundtrack blaring with a non-stop crescendo of women’s moaning, and a cast who is by turns baffled, bemused or straight-up-lost, Catwoman may not be so bad it’s good, but it’s at least bad enough to be worth one (1) drunken watch, if only to survey the blast radius.
Other folks have mentioned that Sharon Stone’s screen chewing as a redeeming quality, and I will say that there are individual moments when Berry throws caution to the wind and taps into the sort of sultry, camp glee associated with Catwoman from the old Batman TV show, but the movie just isn’t designed to support that sort of thing.
Fortunately, we now have Anne Hathaway’s excellent take on the character to serve as the official modern age incarnation of the character, so Pitof’s Catwoman can be safely forgotten in the kitty litter.
(@TheTrueBrendanF)
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