I cannot believe we still live in an age where people still hate Catwoman from 2004.
In an age where everyone loves camp and having fun, and can look back on the Adam West Batman with nostalgia tinted goggles, we should finally be brave enough to say we love Catwoman. Is this a masterclass in anything? No. It’s Halle Berry giving a fun performance as Catwoman while she fights an evil makeup brand, and that is essentially the whole plot. There’s lots of campy dialogue, a lot of puns, and Benjamin Bratt is playing a world weary but supportive boyfriend, a role I hate him in but he clearly loves so good for him. I rewatched this out of boredom recently and was so blown away by how much fun I was having. I remember the first time I saw this, I was with a bunch of comic snob elitists who shit all over it because it wasn’t book accurate or it wasn’t serious enough — whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.
These are the same people who love the Adam West Batman, by the way. And when I tell them that that’s goofy, I get met with arguments of ‘it’s just fun, what’s wrong with fun?’
Which…yeah, exactly. Why is it not okay to have fun — or rather, why is it not okay for femme people to have fun? Why is Catwoman fighting a deranged beauty brand a bridge too far while it’s okay for Batman to wrestle a shark?
Catwoman, despite the gratuitous shots of Halle Berry’s ass, is a movie about finding your voice and strength from the inside, not from the outside. It’s shallow and vapid, yes, but it’s also a fun action movie so I don’t see why the two elements aren’t already synonymous with each other. Shallow action movies are the name of the game, with even the angstiest serving pain on a very surface level. While there are the action movies that have a deeper meaning behind them, like 1994’s The Crow, those are few and far between. Catwoman isn’t out here to change cinema, but simply exists to be a fun movie that might help you feel empowered along the way. And if it doesn’t, oh well, it’s still a good time. You might not relate to being left for dead and revived by cats, which then give you supernatural powers, but who cares?! Can you relate to getting bit by a spider that also gives you supernatural powers? Oh, you can’t? Why is this any different?
I think the reason is pretty obvious.
But we aren’t here to focus on the negatives — we are here to focus on the positives. Halle Berry is having the time of her life, and not since Eartha Kitt have I seen someone have so much fun being Catwoman. She has the camp down perfectly; her journey from meek and timid Patience (a perfect name for a timid character!!) to empowered is believable — if you can believe you can be revived by magical cats — and it works. Her chemistry with Benjamin Bratt is cute and fun, even though he should be playing a villain because he’s at his peak doing villains. The evil company is called Midnight, camp, Sharon Stone is the beauty obsessed actual villain Laurel Hedare, even more camp, and FRANCES CONROY is the mystical old cat lady and her name is OPHELIA POWERS! Like this movie knows what it is, anyone who calls it dumb is blindly ignorant to the fact that this movie went in with the intention of being a ride.
And what a ride it is. Also Benjamin Bratt is in it — if he’s in a movie as a love interest, nine out of ten times it’s a comedy about girl empowerment. So why this was supposed to be The Dark Knight is beyond me. Catwoman was supposed to be a fun action romp — and it is! The fight scenes are great, she makes a lot of cat puns while kicking ass, there was nothing else she could have done to be any different than other superheroes of the era. Maybe her uncle could have died in front of her.
Maybe then Catwoman would get the respect she deserves, because otherwise she’s killing the game.
I’m under no delusion that Catwoman is good, but it’s not as bad as people say. People watch this movie already mad because it’s a woman lead, but then just shit on it for having fun. If Catwoman took itself seriously, I doubt the criticism would have gone away, and would have instead been about how boring it was or about how it wasn’t any fun to watch. The producers and director went the best route they could and they still came up short, according to audiences, but it was truly a fight they were never going to win. There’s nothing wrong with camp and there is nothing wrong with something existing just to be fun. Action movies are the bubblegum pop of cinema, and this is no different.
I just wanted to throw some positivity to a movie that has been universally shit on it’s entire existence when it really didn’t warrant the criticism. Is it good? No, but then again, a lot of action movies aren’t and kind of just become cult classics.
And what better to start a cult around then mystical cats?! It’s like it was staring us in the face this whole time.