Cast: Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone
Director: Pitof

Kitty Dominatrix

By Kenneth Chiu • UrbanWire
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Visual effects meister Pitof punts his finger into the movie directing pie to disastrous results.

Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) is a meek and yielding graphic designer who has a wardrobe right out of a thrift store. Yes, art people do have different perhaps unconventional stylistic preferences, but she sure makes a strong claim for the worst-dressed award. Patience works for Beau-Line, a cutting-edge cosmetics company headed by the terse George Hedare (Lambert Wilson) and his estranged wife Laurel (Sharon Stone), churning out new ads for the company’s soon-to-be-launched miracle anti-aging cream.

Like all bosses, or so it seems, George has contracted the “I-am-boss-so-you-shut-up” syndrome and, forgive the pun, wears Patience thin. Laurel, his resentful wife who was recently dethroned as the face of Beau-Line actually comes to Patience’s rescue and saves her further berating and a possible sacking, but not by much.

Patience unwittingly stumbles upon the side-effects of Beau-Line, massive scarring and deformation, and is silenced. She is resurrected through the holy intervention of Midnight, an Egyptian Mau, a cat breed believed to possess special powers. I gotta get myself one of those pussies, man.

Following her resurrection, Patience meets Ophelia (Frances Conroy), the cat mistress with an excruciatingly annoying voice who explains Patience’s calling to her. At some points, Ophelia actually sounds like she’s attempting to seduce Patience into joining a feline orgy. Looks like canines aren’t the only ones who need to be muzzled.

Patience returns to her apartment and to what she believe is her life but soon finds herself displaying some rather nifty feline traits: cat-like agility, the ability to scale walls, telephoto and night vision as well as the craving for tuna and salmon. Her brain must be shrinking too, because she deals with these changes surprisingly well, as if she’s had them since birth. I’d be spooked if I found fishy odours even faintly arousing.

Tom Lone, (Benjamin Bratt) the detective dating the pre-Catwoman Patience investigates a spate of crimes Catwoman has been accused of, seems clueless about how drastically the girl he has been going out with has changed. Neither does he seem to realise that the profile of Catwoman fits that of the reborn Patience rather perfectly; guess a leather suit, some fiery red lippy and a tiny kitty mask covering just the top of one’s head can go really far in disguising one’s identity. You really can’t expect much progress in the solving of the case.

Halle Berry does a horrific job of playing Patience, even if you don’t expect more of Berry because she was an Oscar winner. Then again, awkward might just have been how the director liked it. The scene where she snips her off her locks to unveil a spunkier grunge hairdo seemed like a total G.I.Jane spoof. Yes I said spoof, it looked hilarious. And if Catwoman’s initial outfit looked a tad gaudy, the updated and “reduced” one didn’t do much better, it looked straight out of a fetishist’s porno movie, complete with whip, ripped leather pants and chains. Well, maybe less is more. After all, the only other place Halle Berry will be decked out in leather and cuffs in all her bronzed glory is in your fantasies.

The entrée to the show was protracted with pictures of cats and news clippings of cats again, fine, this is Catwoman, but what other connection is there? Mind you, it seemed to go on forever. The fight scenes in this CG-heavy flick were none too impressive either, shabbily pieced together and dodgy at times. The shooting was also disorienting, leaving me feeling nauseated.

There were some brighter sparks among the kitty fur. Sharon Stone still works her magic as the aging Laurel, the diabolical wife to Beau-Line’s CEO. At 40, she still looks ravishing and should give Demi Moore a run for her money. Lambert Wilson who plays tyrannical George Hedare does well with his caustic suaveness and is arguably the best actor in this flop of a film. The soundtrack is fab and rousing; alas the film does not live up to it.

The producers should have left Catwoman where she belongs, in the pages of the comic book.

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

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