Catwoman

I had Monday off, so to celebrate, I engaged in one of my favorite leisure activities: watching terrible movies with my buddy Matt, the head_of_fema! We decided on

winner of several 2005 Razzies, and like the others we’ve watched, it disappointed in the most pleasing way.

We open on a credit sequence (Matt: “Directed by Pitof? That’s not a thing”) of cats and maps. Maps and cats. Cats. Maps. Soundtrack evocative of, but not as good as, Enigma’s “Sadness Part 1” (come on, you know that was your jam).

Maps.

Cats.

Voiceover: “It all started on the day that I died.”

That’s Patience Phillips speaking. Not-a-thing Pitof clearly tried to make the main character start out as frump girl — unkempt hair, flowy Afro-print tank top — but how do you make Halle Berry unattractive? Un-possible. Whatever, she’s supposed to be not-hot and clumsy and flustered all the time. She’s Halle Berry, of Monster’s Ball — girl can act — so I’ll buy the clumsy and flustered part, even if she’s gorgeous.

Patience and her chubby BFF Sally (you probably know her as Ms. Swan) work in the marketing department of a huge cosmetics company. Sidekick Sally is shown slathering herself with the as-yet-unreleased product Beau-line (pronounced Bee-you-leen, for no reason whatsoever) and effusing about how great it is. Wanna bet?

Cut to board meeting. CEO with a Fronch accent and slimy demeanor is announcing the launch of Beau-line. Wifie (Sharon Stone) interrupts to say she’s stepping down as the face of the company and introduces the new model, who’s fucking her husband. She doesn’t say that last part, but you can just tell.

Back in his office, Fronch CEO dresses down Patience for her work: “I don’t know why I expected your art to show better taste than your wardrobe.” Ouch. But he has a point. That tank top. Ugh.

Late that night, Patience is awakened by a loud party at the neighbor’s apartment. She opens the window and says at a conversational volume to the closed window across the alley, behind which death metal is playing at full volume, “Could you, like, turn down your music? Aw. Hmph.”

The next day, she attempts to rescue a cat on the ledge of her building. Police officer Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt — mmmm, dreamy) thinks she’s a jumper, tries to talk her down, runs upstairs, bashes in her apartment door, and catches her as she’s about to fall to her death, all in the span of about eight seconds.

Me: “That was fast.”
Matt: “He’s a really good cop.”

Patience sprints out to work.

Back at the company, Wifie is wearing… I don’t know.

Me: “What’s she got on there?”
Matt: “Seven yards of amazing.”

Fronch CEO is lecturing her about how we can’t defeat Father Time. Wanna bet?

Tom Lone has tracked Patience down (using her dropped wallet, natch, because she’s clumsy). While Sally looks on, Lone asks her out for coffee. After he leaves, Sidekick Sally tells Patience she has to wear that leather outfit she got her for her birthday. (I always wear chaps on my coffee dates.) Patience says she’ll never wear that leather outfit. Wanna bet?

Late that night, Patience takes the redone artwork for the campaign to the cosmetics lab and overhears the brass talking about whether they should release the product given the side effects (headaches, fainting, nausea, and if you stop using it, dinocroc skin!). Aw, man, she shouldn’t have heard that. But she definitely shouldn’t have bumped into a tray full of glass, alerting them to her presence. She’s so clumsy!

The brass send a coupla goons after her, who flush her out a pipe, and she drowns.

BUT!

Eighty-seven cats stalk up to her washed-up corpse. One sits on her chest and breathes Fancy Feast breath right in her face, and she’s a cat! She coughs up a hairball, bats at a spider, jumps onto a balcony, and punches through her own window because those are all things cats do.

Patience/Catwoman wakes up the next morning. The breathy cat from last night is in her apartment. She checks the collar and goes to visit the owner, the mom from Six Feet Under, in her craftsman house right in the middle of the city skyscrapers, because sure. Francis Conroy rubs catnip on Patience’s face. I am not making this up.

In some of the worst dialogue of the movie, Fronch CEO tries to fire Patience for not getting the artwork in, and she quits. Sassily. Like how a cat quits its job.

Walking with Sidekick Sally, Patience hisses at dogs and then is drawn to a necklace in a jewelry store window. You think this necklace will have a big significance later in the movie, but you’re wrong. Sidekick Sally faints. (Are you wondering if she has headaches, nausea, and dinocroc skin too?!) They go to the hospital. Sidekick Sally flirts with her doctor and acts totally not sick.

Patience visits Officer Lone at the school where he’s giving a Say No to Drugs talk, and then they play the weirdest game of one-on-one basketball ever. Patience wins because cats are good at basketball.

The neighbor is having another wild party, but this time, Patience busts down the door, sprays the speakers down with the soda hose, and then uses it as a whip! She’s recognizing her power!

Matt: “MONTAGE! MONTAGE!”

That leather outfit she was never gonna wear? Wears it. That unkempt hair? Edward Scissorhandses it. That motorcycle? (Whose motorcycle? Shush!) Rides it all over the city.

Robbery in progress at the jewelry store where she saw that necklace! Catwoman puts a stop to that. “You thought you could come here and steal all these beautiful things? What a purrrrrrfect idea!” She beats them all up and surfs on one dude across the floor. Cats and surfing are like cats and basketball.

Matt: “They love water! They love surfing.”

Catwoman grabs the loot and leaves. Regretful in the morning, she returns it all. Except a real pretty ring and the Insignificant Necklace.

Patience returns to Francis Conroy’s house. Frances Conroy tells her she died and was reborn a cat and pushes her off a balcony to show her she’ll land on her feet. Patience vows to find her own killer.

She runs across rooftops in even less leather than before until she sees one of the goons who was chasing her before her death, at which point she follows him into a club. Dance break! Whip! Fight scene! She whoops ass.

[Other stuff happens but it’s boring.]

Fronch CEO has a fight with Wifie, slaps her, and almost breaks his hand. Beau-line has made her face like marble!

[More boring stuff.]

Shortest, least satisfying sex scene ever between Patience and Officer Lone. I’m feeling real weird about how hot I got watching Halle Berry have sex with Billy Bob Thornton and I’m scowling when she’s getting it on with Benjamin Bratt?

<Avid Bruxist makes therapy appointment>

Lone is putting zero and zero together to figure out that Patience is Catwoman. Meanwhile, Wifie kills Fronch CEO and frames Catwoman. Officer Lone arrests her. She tries to explain that things aren’t what they look like.

Lone: “What should I see?”
Patience: “The girl you had that short, unsatisfying sex scene with last night.”

Patience slips through the bars of her cell, leathers up, and steals a — wait for it — Jaguar. To thwart the evil cosmetics company’s plan, Catwoman chains all the Beau-line truck axles together. All of them. Because for their worldwide launch, all the company needed was a baker’s dozen of 18-wheelers.

Catwoman confronts Wifie. Wifie explains that if you stop using Beau-line, you get dinocroc face, and if you keep using it, you get marble face.

Um.

Thanks for that exposition.

Because exposition always goes in the climax.

And we didn’t already know that from the exposition earlier in the movie where exposition goes.

CAT FIGHT! Not a bad one either, actually. Wifie ends up falling fifty stories out a window.

And then we have another Montage! Montage! Francis Conroy pets a cat. Sidekick Sally finds love.

Me: “Hey, chubby girl gets hot doctor!”
Matt: “Doctor loses license.”

Catwoman writes Lone a Dear John letter and cats off into the distance to a sassy song that’s evocative of, but not as good as, anything by Christina Aguilera (come on, you know she’s your girl).

I mean, if you only have two hours, go with Dinocroc vs. Supergator, but if it’s a lazy Sunday, you could put on your Blu-ray of Pitof’s Catwoman.