Catwoman (2004)

A shy woman, endowed with the speed, reflexes, and senses of a cat, walks a thin line between criminal and hero, even as a detective doggedly pursues her, fascinated by both of her personas.

Director:

Pitof

Writers:

Bob Kane (characters), Theresa Rebeck (story),

Stars:

Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone

5 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Halle Berry	...	Patience Phillips / Catwoman
Benjamin Bratt	...	Tom Lone
Sharon Stone	...	Laurel Hedare
Lambert Wilson	...	George Hedare
Frances Conroy	...	Ophelia
Alex Borstein	...	Sally
Michael Massee	...	Armando
Byron Mann	...	Wesley
Kim Smith	...	Drina
Christopher Heyerdahl	...	Rocker
Peter Wingfield	...	Dr. Ivan Slavicky
Berend McKenzie	...	Lance
Chase Nelson-Murray	...	Kid #1
Manny Petruzzelli	...	Kid #2
Harley Reiner	...	Kid #3

Storyline

Catwoman is the story of shy, sensitive artist Patience Philips, a woman who can't seem to stop apologizing for her own existence. She works as a graphic designer 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 finds herself in the middle of a corporate conspiracy. What happens next changes Patience forever. In a mystical twist of fate, she is transformed into a woman with the strength, speed, agility and ultra-keen senses of a cat. With her newfound prowess and feline intuition, Patience becomes Catwoman, a sleek and stealthy creature balancing on the thin line between good and bad. Like any wildcat, she's dangerous, elusive and untamed. Her adventures are complicated by a burgeoning relationship with Tom Lone, a cop who has fallen for Patience but cannot shake his fascination with the mysterious Catwoman, who appears to be responsible for a ...

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Plot Keywords:

cat | detective | masked vigilante | robbery | superhero | 

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Taglines:

CATch Her In IMAX

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Genres:

Action | Fantasy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for action violence and some sensuality

Details

Official Sites:

Warner Bros [France] Warner Bros.

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

23 July 2004 (USA)

Also Known As:

Untitled 'Batman Returns' Spin-off

Filming Locations:

4th Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$100,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$201,994 (Japan) (5 November 2004)

Gross:

$437,458 (Japan) (5 November 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, DiNovi Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min 87 min (Ontario)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A Bengal cat, a domestic breed, was used in the film. Halle Berry loved it so much that she announced that she was going to adopt it. Some media sources inaccurately described the 13 pound housecat as a tiger which caused the Fund for Animals to send Berry a nasty letter.

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Goofs

When Patience gets out of the jail cell, the window she jumps through opens between shots.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Catwoman: [voiceover] It all started on the day that I died. If there had been an obituary, it would have described the unremarkable life of an unremarkable woman, survived by no one. But there was no obituary, because the day that I died was also the day I started to live. But that comes later. This was my life. Days blended together, consistently ordinary, thanks to a job that was the practical version of my passion. I was supposed to be an artist by now. Instead, I was designing ads for ...

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Connections

Featured in Spike's Guys Choice (2009)

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Soundtracks

"Who's In Control"
Written by Natasha Shneider and Alain Johannes
Performed by Natasha Shneider
Remixed by Junkie XL

User Reviews

Try to make a worse movie--I dare you

Oh, where to start...imagine all the intellectual depth of Showgirls, plus all the excessive and ridiculous special effects of Charlie's Angels, and then throw in some dialog crafted by whomever wrote for Governor Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze in the fourth Batman movie, and only then are you even close to a movie as awful as this.

I suppose one should not expect much from a director who actually refers to himself as Pitof. But let's come back to that. Let's move on to Halle Berry. Note to Halle Berry: Letting Billy Bob Thornton ream you endlessly on camera is certainly degrading, but it was also a good career move--and you won an Oscar; feverishly eating catnip and licking people's faces on camera, however, is not a good career move--and you'll probably win a Razzie this time. They make you return Oscars for movies like this. Oh yeah, as for the supernatural explanation for Patience Phillips/Catwoman's superhero status--she gets CPR from an immortal Egyptian cat--I am not kidding.

And then there is Benjamin Bratt, who happens to be a pretty solid actor, but could have very likely damaged a good career. If his participation in this movie isn't enough to stigmatize him, then I'm sure he had to pass up a lot of good roles because of all the time he spent having his foot surgically removed from his former agent's rectum. There is a scene in this movie--probably the worst, and that's no small achievement--that is reminiscent of that ridiculous scene in Daredevil where Jennifer Garner/Elektra and Ben Affleck/blind superhero have a Kung Fu fight at a playground in broad daylight; in this movie it's Halle Berry and Ben Bratt playing one-on-one hoops and her doing Catwoman flips and yet no one appears to be too amazed by this, much less pants-soiling surprised, and on top of that it has a sort of VH1/Color Me Bad/early New Edition video feel to it. And I'm really not sure what city this is all supposed to take place in--Gotham, Metropolis, the land beneath the whole in the cutting room floor--but apparently this place only has one detective, the unfortunate Bratt. No matter what the crime is--burglary, murder, domestic disturbance, interrupted ballet performance--he's always there.

As for the rest of the cast, that annoying woman from Mad TV--I know that's not specific enough; I mean the most annoying one who plays what I guess is supposed to be some bizarre Asian lady--well, she plays Catwoman's annoying and sort of slutty co-worker comic relief since Rosie O'Donnell was apparently unavailable.

And then we come to Sharon Stone. Now I know her career is going down the crapper with all deliberate speed, but it's still hard to understand this one. The only thing I can guess is that the opportunity to break into silly, pseudo-feminist diatribes made this a role she couldn't turn down. Of course Sharon has often lamented the lack of good roles for older women in Hollywood, and she's absolutely right about that, but this is not the best way to lodge a complaint, and plus that's always been a little peculiar coming from an actress whose greatest cinematic achievement is the conspicuous exposure of her labia.

Briefly back to this Pitof character--I thought that pretentious one-named idiot who did the Charlie's Angels movies--McG, I believe--was bad enough, but this guy is even more shameless and obviously lacking in talent. What's with these guys who've never made a movie and are already going by only one name? Don't you have to work up to that? I mean if is Scorsese wants to go by Marty, fine; if Tarantino wants to be just Quentin, or even just Q, whatever, but where does a hack like this get off using one name? This movie deserves every Razzie it receives, and while some reviewers may say it's not really that bad, remember, it took a lot of money to make this godawful thing, and if people don't speak out about how dreadful it really is, they just might make Catwoman 2. Can you live with that?