The plan was to see "The Bourne Supremacy" but Lindsay

and I began reading the seemingly endless wave of horrible reviews

for "Catwoman" and our curiosity was piqued. We should

have remembered the old adage about curiosity killing a cat and

only satisfaction bringing it back. There is no satisfaction

in this movie - and though it is laughably bad in parts - "Catwoman" is

no "Showgirls."

Halle Berry is "Catwoman," eventually, but at first

she is a meek little nerd named Patience. I found my patience

wearing thin during the set-up portion the film - as they made

Berry super-frumpy, gave her a boisterous best friend played

stereotypical gay guy friend who seemed more intrigued by Detective

Tom Lone, played by Benjamin Bratt, than Patience did. Soon,

Patience stumbles upon a plot by her employers at the cosmetic

company to cover up the dangerous side effects of their new beauty

cream. The bad guys trap her in the sewer pipes and flushes her

out to sea.

I could not help but think, "What an appropriate image

for this film."

But then an army of cats surrounded the now-dead Patience on

an island of rocks and raw sewage. The lead cat, a Mau named

Midnight, who was fantastic and completely believable, breathed

life into the corpse and created Catwoman. You're probably

thinking this is where the movie got good. Not so much. Oh, Berry

looked hot in the leather outfit, but the special effects were

iffy and things just got really, really corny. One part of the

film had Berry roll a ball of catnip back and forth across her

face. It was one of too few laughably bad parts of the movie

and I was the only one in the theater laughing at it.

The remainder of the movie has Berry switch between Patience

and Catwoman, as she struggles with her identity and tries to

figure out who killed her and why. This leads her to Sharon Stone,

who plays the villainess of this movie and is probably looking

at a long hiatus before Quentin Tarantino throws a patch over

her eye and resurrects her career somewhere down the line. Stone

is too flat to be a villain you really care about Catwoman thwarting

- though she too has one great laugher of a line. Describing

how she has gone from the company's top model to a neglected

trophy wife of the company's president, Stone says, "I

turned 40 and they threw me away." I was waiting for her

to begin singing the song "Memory" from "Cats."

This was just a bad movie, from start to finish and top to bottom.

Director Pitof (no first name) is probably considered an amazing

visual auteur in some circles, but if this film is the only major

release on his reel, people may think it was the work of a horny

14-year-old with ADD. Though some of the visual effects work

and are sort of cool, others make you want to lose your popcorn

- if the horrible one on one basketball scene between Berry and

Bratt hasn't made you do that already.

Please, don't see this movie. I did so that you don't

have to. At least wait for it's move to the dollar theater

and even then you may want to wait for discount night.

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