Tossing history, taste and common sense to the litter box, Catwoman foolishly reimagines Batman’s foxy feline nemesis as a pseudo-hero who, as played by Halle Berry, fights crime while outfitted in a ridiculous, and ridiculously revealing, S&M leather get-up. Berry is the type of actress whose most captivating work is done by her body, and in this debut feature by director Pitof (named, presumably, after a failed perfume), the stunning actress struts and shimmies around computer-generated city skylines as if they were her personal fashion runway. Berry plays Patience Philips, a frumpy graphic designer for a beauty product company, and when she discovers that the company’s new facial crème has some serious side effects (like addiction and facial mutations), she’s murdered by megalomaniacal model/CEO Sharon Stone. Rescued by magical Egyptian cats – which give people breath, rather than stealing it – Patience is reborn as a Catwoman, meaning she transforms into a rubbery CGI monstrosity who, when not pouncing around the frame with Gummi Bear abandon, eats tuna out of a can (just like my cat!) and maniacally coos and flirts with a hunky cop (Benjamin Bratt) who’s hot on the trail of the mysterious crime fighter. Bratt’s cop is so stupid that one can imagine him being endlessly distracted by a ball of twine, while Berry’s whip-crazy heroine amazingly exudes not a single iota of Julie Newmar’s playful sensuality or Eartha Kitt’s purring animalism. Within ten minutes of the opening credits, I felt as though this avalanche of de-clawed idiocy was slowly neutering my brain.
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