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Of course this subject of discussion has been gone and over constantly through these past few months but I can’t help it anymore. I’ve gotta say something. This movie is terrible and not just terrible on a fun kind of level (like a bad comedy) it’s devastating. Ed Wood would cringe. The thing that makes this so bad though is not that the movie is as bad as it is but that it could have been so much better.
Now, as I understand it, there was a while there before Batman Forever was made where Michelle Pfeiffer and Tim Burton were playing around with the idea of bringing Batman and Catwoman back together. Things happened though and Pfeiffer got pregnant, not being able to fit in the suit. Burton decided to stay out of directing the third movie because he didn’t like the way things were shaping up and how he was treated on the second movie. I’m surprised the idea of Catwoman didn’t die right then. Low and behold Hollywood doesn’t work like that and a monkey chained to a typewriter with cigarettes as fuel can get a movie written and greenlit to meet a deadline. Such is the case with Catwoman’s current incarnation. Eventually the idea got out that Catwoman should have a spin-off.
The New Catwoman with Halle Berry fails on so many levels that it’s hard to even keep track. Here’s the first level of failure: Halle Berry is attractive, granted, but never had that sly little mousy appeal that Catwoman needed as a character to begin with. Michelle Pfeiffer (as well as those actresses from the cheesy 1960’s Batman TV show) had that quality. Pfeiffer enveloped the character. She spoke the sexy lines written in the script low and with a sardonic twist that made them feel real. She didn’t force her Catwoman lines like Berry does. 1992 was the year of success.
The second level of crapiness in the 2004 movie is that the script was clichéd in everything (including some of the most horrible dialogue ever written). It didn’t delve into any sort of character development, psychology or drama. Tim Burton’s and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman was a character fraught with complications (something that gave her an edge as well as an emotional center). Pfeiffer was a psycho, which made her villain a tragic figure as well as a mean, stone cold, angry bitch. She had head trauma and is acting like a crazy person. Burton says in the book “Burton on Burton” that the Batman films would never have worked it they didn’t acknowledge the freak factor of even wearing a mask. “No matter what anyone, says,” Burton says, “that’s weird.” The new movie doesn’t acknowledge the absurdity at all.
Halle Berry’s Catwoman only lives through an “accident” because of some kind of cockeyed plot where a cat puts a magic spell on her. Wow. A Magic Spell. It’s the dumbest thing ever. Halle plays Catwoman not as a confused and lonely woman who’s coming to pieces with herself (which Michelle Pfeiffer did perfectly; also apparent in her wardrobe—ala all the stitches) but as an S&M spokeswoman clad in dominatrix leather who looks like she’s just wandered out of a porno flick. As I said earlier, her [Halle Berry’s] dialogue and the manor in which she delivers it seems forced (if you can understand what I’m meaning by forced) into uneasiness. It’s like she walked out of “Debbie does Dallas” or something. None of the dialogue seems real. It isn’t genuine. None of it is.
The third level of disappointment I had in this movie was with the director. Friggin’ “Pitof”, man (gazundheit). Thank god he didn’t sign on to do the new Superman movie, like I heard he would a few months ago. He just doesn’t care about the art of story-telling. I hate to rag on the man but… the story, the music… Nothing matters to him! “The CGI sucks, Pifof.” we say. “So what,” he says, “nobody will notice.” We mention that the script has no depth and he says, “Who cares! We get to see Halle Berry in tight leather!” I’m starting to think that’s the only real reason this movie was made (Rotten Tomatoes mirrors that sentiment in their many reviews of this suck-fest as well, my friends).
Pitof is no Tim Burton. That’s apparent from frame one. Burton uses CGI sparingly. He’s an advocate in the “art” of film as it was in Hollywood’s golden age. HE ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT IT. Pitof flaunts the CGI in Catwoman. Unlike Pitof, I don’t believe Burton got into this business for the money. Tim Burton thinks and works on the whole like the filmmakers of thirty or forty years ago. He’s such a far cry from these new hacks of today, with a style just as recognizable as Fellini’s or Hitchcock’s, that it’s hard not to call him one of the best mainstream directors ever.
Coming in as the fourth level of crapiness, is the music. I’ll get right to that so hold in. 2004’s CATWOMAN was spoiled for me irreparably and totally when we are shown, at the beginning of the movie, the scenes where Halle Berry creates her suit and “transforms”. It’s not the big breakdown we saw in Batman Returns where an apartment is wrecked and we leave the scene so emotionally drained. It’s simply a woman coming home with no bumps or bruises, looking in the mirror and smiling like nothing’s wrong. She takes out scissors and cuts her hair to some of the worst music ever. She pulls out a leather jacket. A LEATHER JACKET! Have you seen the new Catwoman suit? How in the hell can you make this new suit out of a leather jacket?
Danny Elfman’s CATWOMAN music in 1992 was—in my opinion—some of his best music ever. It pumped along during the action sequences with jarring, stabbing rhythms low in the celli and an instantly recognizable artificial harmonic motif up in the higher registers of the violins. The music sounded “catsy”, as Elfman put it. It purred with the woodwinds and slinked around fluidly with the high violin motif. The bongo and congo drums gave it a hip feeling, putting the music into a category that was already fun, sad, dizzying and mean. Klaus Badelt’s music for the new movie is a train wreck, simply put. Roger Ebert even went to great lengths to mention how much the new music sucked in his review. That’s not the worst of it though. The cancer of modern times (hip new songs in movies) comes full circle during the action sequences (like the first robbery sequence).
FINAL WORD PEOPLE. Don’t watch this movie. Don’t buy it when it comes out. Pretend it doesn’t exist. Don’t even buy the soundtrack. Just go home, draw the shades and put your old VHS copies of Batman Returns in the tape player. You’ll have a much better experience watching something that’s old and fun than wasting any money on something that’s new and terrible beyond comprehension.
…Or better yet, go watch Spider-man 2.
“Halle Berry is attractive”
Hmmm. I’ve never thought that she was attractive at all, although a lot of people seem to think she is.
Yeah, the movie sounds terrible. The previews even look horrid. I would have been surprised if it got good reviews.
It’s like a 20 % on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s pretty damn rotten.
No in fact, it’s 11 % right now, lol.
Here, in French-speaking countries, anybody who’ve seen Pitof’s first film “Vidocq” knew that Catwoman was going to be a disaster….Pitof is the guy who did the CGI on Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s movies (Alien Resurrection…). Looks like everytime he’s involved, he kills off a franchise.
I never intended to see the film, because I have so many friends in the comic industry who are boycotting it. The story doesn’t even pay tribute to the ORIGINAL character from the comics, and ALOT of people are really pissed about that. It’s just another example of a “cash-cow”, a film which no one really cares about but just does because they think it will make money. Now how the hell does an academy award winner do a movie like this? Of course, in my opinion, she should never have won that… and I still don’t see why she did, because Monster’s Ball was just… twisted.
Anyhow, the only younger directors I have alot of respect for are Sam Raimi, Tim Burton, and M. Night, along with a few that are just coming out now that actually do good films, because they are dedicated to doing things differently, not commercially. I am still a big fan of alot of the artsy directors from the 80’s (Peterson, Scott, ect.) because they are pretty much the ones that got me into film in the first place.
If you have to watch a newer film though, go get The Butterfly Effect, it was really great (who new that Ashton [or however you spell his name] could act?!?).
Knight (My fav. movie of all time is The Neverending Story, so you can all laugh at me now hehe)
Hey if you wanna see Halle Berry, you don’t even have to watch X-Men or Catwoman…just rent Monster’s Ball and you’ll get your money’s worth, boys and girls.
I hate Halle Berry with a passion! It’s not a racist thing, I’m just so sick of people saying how pretty and attractive she is,and there is something about her that annoys me so, I have read the reviews of Catwoman just recently and they mentioned Tim’s Batman Returns was “far more entertaining” and that Michelle fit the part perfectly. When I was in Germany in June my cousins and I went to see Harry Potter 3 (which was not very good, books are always far more better) one of the previews was Catwoman and my cousin got all excited, I saw from the begining that it wasn’t my thing!
Klaus Badelt’s music sucked? Wow, that’s very upsetting. I loved his score for The Time Machine, and Pirates of the Caribbean (the parts that he actually did score) was good also. The Recruit wasn’t bad either. I never at any point planned on seeing Catwoman, and now I won’t even watch it on HBO. I don’t see how Halle Berry won an Oscar. I never saw Monster’s Ball, but I did see X-Men, X2, and Die Another Day, and to me she seems inferior to many of the more talented actresses out there. I’m glad that they’re considering replacing her in X-Men 3 (which Bryan Singer should direct rather than Superman, which WB will have more control over than Singer).
time machine was a stellar score…. really moving, epic music.
Yeah, THE TIME MACHINE really lived up to it’s name. Badelt’s music took me back to the past. To the fall of 1997, in fact, when I was sitting in my local movie theater listening to Jerry Goldsmith’s score to THE EDGE.
John Mullin . . . you crack me up.
P.S. . . . it sounds like you know of Elfman and film score-related goings-on in the LA area that I don’t know about . . . if there’s anything ever cool happening that the general public can attend, please let me know! I miss music! (I will be going to a John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl next month, and the LOTR symphony after that, but besides that I don’t know of any other fun film score stuff . . . pooey.)
>>”Halle Berry is attractive”
>>Hmmm. I’ve never thought that she was attractive at all, although a lot of people seem to think she is.Okay, I don’t know what planet you seem to be on. Or if you’re just blind. Halle Berry has to be one of the most beautiful women gracing the earth today. Bar none. Granted she makes a few bad career choices (B.A.P.S., Catwoman) but shes made some good ones too (Monster’s Ball, Losing Isaiah).
I dont see how any guy couldnt find Halle Berry absolutly gorgeous, they would either have to be gay or racist lol, But as far as the movie goes, I mean, it has some cool visual effects, tho its not as cool as Batman Returns, I just think the ones at fault here are the director, for making her act lame, the writer, for giving her stupid lines, and the costume designer for reasons all too obvious.
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