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Catwoman (2004)

Director: Pitof

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From Time Out London

Girls: stuck in a rat-trap job slaving for The Man? Tall dark stranger in uniform yet to lap you up? Simply slink off to your local bondage-wear emporium and shuck your chains for a black-leather corset, mask and bullwhip ensemble which will have you striding through the night like a hellcat, stealing motorbikes and ripping 16 shades of shit out of anyone who might get your goat. Morning-after amnesia will alleviate any residual guilt such antics might spark in your pre-Nietzschean daytime self, and the best thing is you’ll feel so lithe no jail bars can hold you. (You are, of course, already thin.)
Hard to muster a coherent reading of this confused dog’s dinner of a movie; harder still to suggest anyone try, it’s such seething tripe. Certainly, the film hashes together post-‘Ally McBeal’ filleted feminism with perfunctory pro-teenage blockbuster kicks, to the point of seemingly addressing career women as gormless pubescents – but just as galling are the film’s aesthetic evils. In no particular order: a hyperactive monkey on a sugar-rush appears to have got its mitts on the camera controls and cutting button; more monkeys with word-processors flirt just close enough with ‘Cat People’ references to remind you of the poetry they’re lacking; and the special effects are as plastic as the techno-fuzz sound track. Halle Berry makes a game, bum-proud supervixen (she’s laughable doing ditzy/frumpy, of course), until you remember Michelle Pfeiffer’s far classier package – but the story cramps Sharon Stone’s older-vamp act. You’re left with flashes of mis-spent promise: the feline mysticism; the cosmetics-industry intrigue; the idea of electrocuting Lambert Wilson’s unctious corporate cad.

Author: NB 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out London Issue 1773: August 11-18, 2004