Halle Berry slinks and pounces her way through Catwoman.

Not close to purrfect

Catwoman

Stars Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt and Sharon Stone.
Rated M.

Reviewer: LT Simone Heyer

Rating:

Stinks like kitty litter

Catwoman is not the comic bookto- big screen film to cut your nails on. A suck-you-right-in start doesn’t guarantee a top film.

All the signs pointed to an excellent production but when dropped from the heights of movie-greats, doesn’t land on its feet.

Bratt was charming as Tom the on-the-spot cop, but his character lacked the depth his acting career afforded him.

In fact, the whole film was thin in the fur department. Lines were comic-book corny and the actors didn’t stretch their abilities.

The film will appeal to teenage girls searching for their identity as women, or men who don’t mind a lady in leather and a mask.

will leave you with the taste of a dirty big hairball in your mouth.

No better than claws down a blackboard

Reviewer: PTE Shannon Joyce.

Rating:

It was good to see Oscarwinning actress Halle Berry stepping down from her serious roles and having fun Catwoman in this adaptation from the DC Comics series.

And I do mean stepping down.

Unfortunately Catwoman was far from fun, and what the sleek sexy figure of Berry a tight leather cat’s costume was meant to bring to the film, wasn’t enough to carry it with the weighted-down corny oneliners that completely miss the mark and insult the Batman franchise from which Catwoman spawned.

Her character’s translation from the comic book hero was always going to be a difficult cat to tame.

Unlike the successful adaptations of The X-Men and Spiderman, whose superheroes have good motivational reasons why they carry out the justices they do, Catwoman has no personal struggle to come to grips with.

She just has a convenient split-personality and cat-human powers given on her death bed through the breath-of-life from an ancient cat.

Catwoman lacked the most fundamental element of all dogooders - a clear-cut nemesis.

Her arch-enemy was a quite ridiculous, unimaginable product of a beauty-crème company.

The digital wizards have done it again though, surpassing previous productions with a convincing animated Catwoman pouncing from building to building across the city.

Love interest Benjamin Bratt, probably best known for his role as a cop in Law & Order, tries to turn on the charm to such a degree that it’s embarrassing to watch.

The script has him getting by on smiles and charm - he’s obviously been directed to take his acting skills down a notch for the role. Catwoman will easily make its money back on Halle Berry.

And as becoming more common, her character has been left open to support a sequel.

Let’s hope more effort is put into other areas of the film for future productions, and a decent flame for Berry is found.

Catwoman was never going to be strong enough to carry a film franchise as the leading superhero, and this production has proved that.

Do not see this flick unless you’ve just spent a few lonely weeks on exercise.