 | |
List Price: $12.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 34845
Released: January 18, 2005 |
| Our Price: $4.97 |
| Used Price: $0.04 |
|
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
Catwoman is the story of meek, mild-mannered artist Patience Philips, who works for Hedare Beauty, a mammoth cosmetics company on the verge of releasing a revolutionary anti-aging product. When Patience inadvertently happens upon a dark secret her employer is hiding, she is attacked and killed. But Patience is given a second chance - a second life in which someone not quite human resides. Someone with the strength, speed, agility and ultra-keen senses of a cat. With her newfound power, Patience becomes Catwoman, and sets out to stop Hedare's callous plan to unleash an appallingly dangerous product into the world.
DVD Features:
Additional Scenes
Alternate endings
Documentaries:The many faces of Catwoman
Documentary:HBO First Look Special
Description of Catwoman (Full Screen Edition):
For a certain segment of the population, the vision of Halle Berry in shredded skin-tight leather is reason enough to see Catwoman. As Patience Philips, Berry plays a mousy graphic designer for a cosmetics company who learns a little too much about her employer's new beauty cream and gets flushed down a waste-disposal pipe. A supernatural cat brings Patience back to life and brings up a new persona from the depths of her psyche; soon she's bounding around fire escapes, cracking a whip, and getting framed for a couple of murders by a villainous ex-supermodel (Sharon Stone, Total Recall, Basic Instinct). If you're hoping for a Catwoman with bite, this is not your movie--this Catwoman rescues children from malfunctioning ferris wheels and apologizes for stealing jewels. The movie's script and visual style are as fresh as used kitty litter. Also featuring Benjamin Bratt (Miss Congeniality), and Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under). --Bret Fetzer
Catwoman (Full Screen Edition) Reviews:
Kitty Litter 
2008-09-09 - Halle Berry X-Men stars as Catwoman, a movie that had a lot of potential, but the director Pitof, who has a background in visual effects, really bombed on this turkey. Halle looks great in her tight leather and dominatrix style.
Catwoman in this film has no struggle with herself, has no real evil with her (steals jewels then apologizes for stealing them -- No, no, no!!!)
However:
Unreality:
No one is as clumsy and dumb as Halle's earlier character, Patience, before she becomes the Cat. Bangs into every single person who crosses her path on the way to work. Tries to save a cat on a ledge, gets up on an air conditioner, and then when the cop (cluelessly played in cardboard fashion by Benjamin Bratt After the Storm as Tom Lone) saves her, she immediately jumps to her coat and purse, yells she's going to be late for work and leaves. If I was nearly killed in a fall off a ledge, the last thing I would worry about was work. Gets worse from there.
And no one is as clumsy and stupid as the cop, Tom Lone.
The fact that Tom Lone can't figure out that his girlfriend is Catwoman is beyond belief. The handwriting matches what she wrote on a coffee cup and the "Sorry" written on a paper bag (you had to be there - never mind).
The whole magic Egyptian cat thing was not played well at all. The legends were not expanded, there was no detail, the weird cat lady who claims these Egyptian cats have been doing this for centuries (and gosh, she found out all this on Google, too - WOW). I mean, really now.
Patience Phillips goes into the office building, no guards anywhere, no alarms anywhere, yells is anyone here, and then after overhearing how the new anti-aging cream damages people, she knocks over a glass and THEN they hear her and run after her. She's flushed down a drain, dies, and then is reborn thanks to our Egyptian magic cat, Midnight.
Why does she lose her memory? What's with the on and off again amnesia? Who runs this cat? Ow, I'm getting a headache.
The special effects are jumpy and inconsistent. Alternate ending is no better than the original ending. Sad.
The music is flat and unforgettable. Like a video game or music video.
In Spider-man 1, Peter Parker comes to grips with his new powers and it's endearing how he struggles with this new ability and power.
With Catwoman, she's practically a new species. I must have missed the scene where she goes "Wow, this is amazing, look what I can do!" Nope, no revelation, flat cardboard character.
She does gain the power to cut her hair real fast complete with highlights in her hair in under five minutes perfectly. Where did that motorcycle come from? Time to accessorize?? Please.... I love the costume, love the cat-like movements. But she sees nothing wrong with scarfing down sushi and eating out of tuna cans, balancing on furniture and landing on all fours. No, no, no.
The Sharon Stone Basic Instinct - Director's Cut (Ultimate Edition) character continues to use the anti-aging cream and finds it turns her skin to marble - she gains the power of being unable to be slapped! WOW. That and her bad one-liners makes for an unintentionally laughable film.
Now the good things on this DVD: It's heartbreaking listening to the "making of" and listening to the interviews. One person, a producer I think, says the best thing about the movie is the costume. So she implied that the script and story were fairly bad. You can see though that the actors really tried hard to make the best of a bad situation. The fighting turned out to be a Brazilian judo and that Halle did a lot of her own stunts.
The best part of the DVD is the history of Catwoman in comics and especially in the TV and movies of the 1960s. We see Eartha Kitt, Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether and Adrienne Beabeau (SP), the voice-over cartoon animated version and Michelle Pfeiffer (who is one of the best of the catwomen, but I just don't buy the mystical origin). Very cool to get Adam West's take on the character, with Alex Ross, and several DC artists and writers giving their take on the character.
Get the DVD for the Adam West interview. Batman - The Movie Otherwise, forget this one.
Bat Kitty! Bad Bad Kitty!
2008-09-05 - This is not the worst movie in the world as some would have you believe. But in a world that has given us "Manos: the Hands of Fate", "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Starship Troopers: Hero of the Federation", that doesn't really say much.
I watched this movie because I have a morbid curiosity about bad movies. Particularly, figuring out where they went wrong. And the consensus here is ... pretty much everywhere.
Let's start with the story. The villain's dastardly plan revolves around marketing a facial creme that rejuvenates the skin, but, if one stops using it, has some very mean side effects. That's about it. MAKEUP! Oh no! The world will never be able to recover from that diabolical blow! Sure, the Joker (in Tim Burton's BATMAN) used personal grooming items seemingly at random to inflict mild cases of death on the unsuspecting public in his sadistic mind game to cause horror among the population of Gotham, but we're talking about a creme here that actually makes you look uglier if you stop using it! NOOOOOOO!
Okay, snark aside, I just couldn't care about the "evil plot" except for the fact that they killed our heroine to keep their little secret.
Which brings us to the next point. Giving Catwoman superhuman powers because she is brought back to life by some mystical Egyptian cat? Really? You're going to stick with that? That's not quite the MO for this character. Sure, she may act catty at times, but there is nothing supernatural about her. Adding this mystical element just distances the audience even further from the character. Revenge we understand. Slight insanity? Got it. Superhuman cat powers? You lost me.
Then there's the kinetic, motion-sickness-inducing direction. Do you think you could lock that camera down for a minute or two? Please? The lighting and coloring don't help in the least. It is just way too visually busy. I understand trying for "artistic" filming, but this is ridiculous.
In the end, the only reason I gave this more than one star is that, for those who want to see how to ruin a movie, this is something you could actually sit through and take notes. As the movie ends, you truly don't care about anyone or anything in the whole movie. So it gets one extra star for the education it gives in bad film making.
Great fun movie, bring on the sequel 
2008-09-03 - I saw this movie on DVD because they never brought it to our cinema. I subsequently tried to purchase it on DVD but that order never arrived. I must have Patience's bad luck with this movie! Either way, I am determined to own it because it's a really fun movie and has a plausible storyline that actually makes sense to me, is thought-provoking and is not overdone or over-acted, contrary to what some reviewers say. I believe those reviewers probably watched a different movie - or are of the comic-book fan crowd who hated the movie before they even saw it.
All the actors delivered fine performances. I especially liked the tie-in with the history of cats, which lent credibility to the plot. One of my favorite scenes is actually not of Halle as catwoman but when Patience (revived) and Lone play basketball - it looked really cool.
I read what Halle said about the movie when accepting her Razzie - although I believe she didn't really mean it (besides what else could she say) especially since she later said she would consider doing a sequel. I say 'bring it on' WB!
Three and a half ... and by they way she acted great! 
2008-08-04 - This is a totally watchable movie, I love the origin of catwoman and some of the cgi effects, cat movements etc... Specially the fight in the jewelry store. I just hated the corny dialogue ex. "It's overtime!" Corny!!!
I agree a better villain could have been better, but Sharon did a good job. I love Sharon. Maybe if she were a sci fi villain instead of a normal person with a face of marble. Anyway, there are worse things in this movie:
Editing, don't know if it was the directors fault but I hate choppy movies ex. Moulin Rouge etc...
Soundtrack, horrible. I hate the whole pussycat doll wailing in the background. Would have been better just classical film soundtrack.
Costume, the mask was ugly, the pants were ok I guess don't like the bell bottom look. I agree with others that the costume she wore at the jewelry store was much better. I liked seeing her hair and the mask was cute.
So finally her acting. It was great, you people associate everything horrible in the movie with her but it's not her fault. Her acting was not bad at all. The dialogue and corny lines are the faults. But again not all her lines were bad.
She had the cool right cat attitude. Her movements were great, specially when she wakes up from death, just like a cat watching and playing with something. Her changes from geek to cool to bad were right on and her emotions were shown when needed.
So my challenge to the makers in hollywood is to give Catwoman another chance. Do a remake like the hulk with Halle even. Or make her play Catwoman in the next Batman movie, she deserves a chance.
Same thing for Mr. Freeze, re do him and make us forget Arnold playing him. :-)
Catwoman Movie
2008-07-18 - This is not a very good movie. Halle Barry did do her best, though.
The plot is basicly this- a shy and quiet woman saves a magical cat's life and is rewarded by becoming a Cat Woman by the cat, who has powers since he's an ancient breed, and starts off robbing. She tries to balence her cat nights and life with a handsome lover police man but evetually fails. Meanwhile, evil is at work as they create a cream that makes you look younger and turns your skin to look like a monster's. Our kitty hero strives to stop them and eventually goes into a full battle with the sole creator, a wild and evil mastermind woman.
I did not like the plot. See, the problem with movies is that if you have a powerful good guy (or girl, in this case) you must have a powerful villian to match their every move in battle. The evilness in this movie was weak and very unlogical. The cream turned her skin to marble- oh, I'm so scared because a powerul catwoman is battling a lady with tough skin! See? That's why this movie wasn't very good and why Spiderman 2 rocked!
The parts with her lover are awkward and too long and predictable. You knew that eventually she'd trip up and he'd discover her kitty life and they'd be grieved over their love, as they must separate in the end.
The two things I did like were-
1: Ever heard of the excellent cat series called Warriors, warrior cats, by Erin Hunter? Well, a movie is probably coming out in the next three years using computer graphics to operate the cats. Well, this movie was very cat-related and I loved the CG cats. That was awesome!
2: The ironic scene where our kitty hero walks off into the moonrise, instead of your classic man hero walking off into the sunset. I liked that.
Overall, it's okay to rent and watch twice, but otherwise not good enough to buy. Fairly good acting, though predictable, great CG cats!!!!!
Sincerely,
~Moonwhisker~
