Twenty years ago, DC Comics attempted to resuscitate a long-dormant project with an Oscar-winning star amid what seemed to be a new age for superhero movies after the overwhelming success of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. The result was an instantly derided film that became Hollywood’s punching bag and a cautionary tale of what not to do when adapting a beloved comic book character. In the end, it derailed the career of its talented star and did considerable damage to its feline protagonist.
Today, Catwoman‘s reputation isn’t much better. Widely regarded as a trainwreck of epic proportions, the film is one of the biggest stains in DC’s grimy portfolio, a piece of showbusiness infamy that continues to scare Hollywood executives and would-be starlets alike. Although it has been somewhat reclaimed by a select few amid today’s culture of “maybe this awful movie wasn’t really so bad,” Catwoman is still a nightmare and, quite possibly, the single worst comic book adaptation ever. On its 20th anniversary, let’s look back at its terrible legacy and unpack what makes it so bad — and what might be its sole saving grace.
Hear her purr
To understand why Catwoman is such a terrible adaptation of the title character, you must first understand who Catwoman is. Debuting as “The Cat” in the first Batman issue in 1940, Catwoman has been through numerous lives, going from petty, small-time thief to minor nuisance in Batman’s path to full-on antagonist openly causing chaos throughout Gotham. Although a few characters have assumed the mantle over the years, the feline’s most widely recognized iteration is Selina Kyle, a seductive antihero and love interest for Bruce Wayne and his alter ego.
Arguably comic book canon’s most famous femme fatale, Catwoman is a master of self-service and shifting allegiances. Mercurial and cunning, she isn’t afraid to switch sides, play the field, cheat, lie, and betray if it means staying alive in a game that is often rigged against small-time players like her. Although selfish and decidedly disruptive, Catwoman isn’t a villain per se — she often acts as an unreliable ally of Batman, to the point where she is now commonly accepted as a member of the Bat Family.
Before Berry, many actresses brought Catwoman to life in both movies and television, and in live-action and animation. In the 1960s TV show, Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, and Eartha Kitt played Catwoman before three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer played the definitive version of the character in Tim Burton’s deliciously sultry Batman Returns in 1992. Pfeiffer’s Catwoman was so popular that Burton entertained a solo movie for her for years, which ultimately never came to pass. It was from the ashes of this unrealized project that 2004’s Catwoman was born.
Patience isn’t a virtue
One of the film’s main issues is the puzzling choice to have someone other than Selina Kyle be the film’s focus. The protagonist, Patience Phillips, is the typical loser in a comic book movie, an unremarkable figure who becomes extraordinary by receiving special abilities. The film also ignores Catwoman’s connection with The Dark Knight, instead presenting her as a heroic figure operating outside Gotham City and seeking justice against those who wronged her. Rather than being a self-serving thief trying to get ahead, this Catwoman is a superhero by every metric, complete with supernatural abilities.
Pfeiffer’s version did indeed include an element of the supernatural; she was quite literally, being brought back from the dead by a bunch of stray cats. However, Burton didn’t even bother to explain the how or why behind the process — it just happened. The deliberate lack of detail worked in Pfeiffer’s favor, allowing her to embrace the absurd by treating it matter-of-factly. This approach is nowhere to be found in Catwoman, which tries to give the character a backstory dating back to Ancient Egypt featuring “catwomen” with cat-like abilities and ties to the goddess Bast.
Suffice it to say, this choice sucks; the more the movie tries to justify itself, the more ridiculous it sounds. Whereas Pfeiffer and the women that came before her proudly stood with their heads held high thanks to their self-aware approach to the character, Berry and director Pitof’s insistence on turning Catwoman into a lore-rich figure out of mythology resulted in a bastardization of the iconic feline fatale.
Catwoman’s strength has always relied on her insistence to remain elusive and singular; the less he knows about her, the more appealing she is to Batman and, thus, the audience. Quite simply, Catwoman reveals too much about the character; unfortunately, what it reveals is not worth knowing.
Put some respect on Halle Berry’s name
In 2004, Halle Berry was at the top of the Hollywood game. The 2002 Oscar winner for Best Actress — the first Black woman to triumph in the category, no less — Berry was no stranger to blockbusters. Since 2000, she had been playing Ororo Munroe, aka Storm, in the X-Men franchise, which had released the acclaimed X2: X-Men United a year before. In 2002, she played Jinx, the Bond Girl in Die Another Day, which was critically panned, but successful enough for the studio to consider a spinoff film for Berry’s character.
While her track record was pretty much 50-50, Berry was still a highly sought actress and one of the biggest stars of her time. When news of her casting as Catwoman came out, fans were excited, to say the least.
Judging Berry’s performance in Catwoman is tricky. She is a victim of a terrible combination of terrible elements terribly executed: the screenplay is bad, Pitof’s direction is lackluster, the editing is nauseating, her co-stars very obviously do not want to be there, the action is objectively awful, the humor is cringeworthy … even the damn suit is an assault on the eyes.
Yet, Berry is there with a fully involved portrayal that is almost hilarious in how committed it is to such mediocre material. What’s worse is that Berry doesn’t seem to be in on the joke — she, like Pitof, seems to believe Catwoman is something it’s not, confusing stupidity with humor. But the laughs they hear are mockery, not entertainment, and they are only barely more audible than the chorus of boos in the background.
The actress does her utter best despite misunderstanding the material. Berry is in there, wearing what is basically a bra with leather pants and exposed-toe high heels, delivering lines like “White Russian. No ice, hold the vodka, hold the Kahlua” with full conviction and not an ounce of irony.
She wipes her milk mustache like she’s in an erotic thriller rather than a stupid comic book movie before taking to the stage to perform an awkward dance to the tune of the most generic-sounding EDM. It’s somehow more cringe-worthy than the dance-off in White Chicks. The harder Berry tries — and she tries hard — the more embarrassing everything around her becomes.
Catwoman is one of the few movies that gets worse the better its lead actor is. In this very movie, Sharon Stone is delivering objectively risible, all-time-terrible acting, histrionic and overdone, yet puzzlingly stiff. It’s a paycheck gig and a desperate attempt to stay relevant if ever there was one.
Watching the two together is fascinating, a clash of misdirected, misguided, misconstrued talent; whereas Berry’s stiffness seems to be a character choice, Stone’s overacting stems from a lack of interest in what she clearly considers material that’s beneath her. Yet, only one of these two ladies is an Oscar winner, and it’s not the one half-assing it.
You are Patience. And you’re not Catwoman
For years, Halle Berry has received the blame for Catwoman‘s failure, but the truth is, if the film has become something of a cult classic in recent years, it’s all because of her. Rather, the blame should go to everyone else in the film, who never quite reaches her level of dedication. Pitof is quite possibly the biggest culprit behind this mess, directing Catwoman as a hypersexualized La Perla ad rather than a comic book movie.
The cast, including a wholly disinterested Benjamin Bratt and the aforementioned Stone, are also bafflingly bad, although the ever-reliable Frances Conroy does get some points for bringing Myrtle Snow to life years before the red-headed witch was a glimmer in Ryan Murphy’s eye. The editing is perhaps Catwoman‘s most dreadful aspect, with the average fight sequence having more cuts than Berry’s leather pants.
Catwoman is the worst type of blockbuster, a profoundly stupid effort that actually believes itself good. If only there had been some element of self-awareness at play, then the film could’ve endured as a so-bad-it’s-good classic. If Berry had just surrendered to the idiocy around her, Faye Dunaway-style, then Catwoman would excel as a camp masterpiece.
But none of that happened, and instead, Catwoman now exists as a cinematic sin, a prime example of everything that can go wrong when not one soul involved in the making of a film understands why they’re there in the first place. It’s not hard to see Catwoman is the worst comic book adaptation ever made, a notorious legacy it isn’t likely to overcome anytime soon or ever. This kitten should’ve stayed dead.
Catwoman is available to rent or stream on Amazon and other digital vendors.
