This movie was terrible, in some of the best possible ways. Let’s start with the standard checklist for this type of movie:

- Absolutely terrible CG that was overused? Check.
- Needlessly evil villains with shallow and unclear motives? Check.
- Ridiculous and overly complicated plot? Check.

Oh, I’m sorry. You may not have seen this film yet, and now you probably don’t want to. I should tell you what it’s about.

A shy and terrified young woman named Patience Phillips (played by Halle Berry, whom you may know better as Storm from the X-Men series) discovers the Cosmetics Corporation she works for is about to announce a new beauty cream to the market which is highly addictive, causes headaches and health problems, and while it does reverse aging, if you stop using it you will have horrible, horrible scars.

Miss Phillips overhears some info she isn’t suppose to hear and is consequently flushed out of the factories sewage pipeline, which conveniently dumps right into the ocean. This, apparently, kills her, but she is resurrected by an Egyptian cat named Midnight. (Who makes this stuff up? This is solid gold!)

The resurrection makes her part cat and she uses her new found feline abilities to fight crime and woo a handsome police officer who was already head over heels about her. His name… wait for it… is Tom Lone. Who, I kid you not, has this line in the film: “I’m used to working alone, most of the time.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! How can I get this job?

No, seriously. How can I get that job? Someone got paid to create a character named Tom Lone who is a cop who works alone.

Okay, where was I…

I’d warn you about spoilers, but the movie is so blatant and predictable that you’d have to be asleep not to see it coming. Seriously though. Spoilers ahead.

Knowing what she now knows about Salve Syndicate, Patience/Catwoman decides she needs to stop the evil CEO from unleashing death upon the world. (Because, apparently, this universe doesn’t have anything like the FDA.) When Catwoman shows up at the facial cream factory she finds a dead body and is mistaken for the killer.

But in a plot twist they gave away at the beginning of the film, it turns out that the CEO’s wife is really the evil brains behind Moisturizer Megacorp, and the final climactic fight scene is both a literal and figurative cat fight between the two women.

The editing of this film is insane. The concepts are as crazy as the effects and not always in a good way. For what it’s worth, the movie had a few really cool things in it. There were a number of shots that were not only clever, but well done. Some of the scenes were fantastic, but at the end of the day, the movie walked away with a 2004 Razzie award for “Worst Picture.”

Catwoman is about 12 kinds of ridiculous and if you’re looking for something stupid to watch, I would rank this higher than a lot of other comedies. It’s not slapstick funny. It’s not stupid funny. It’s OMG WHAT WHERE THEY THINKING?!?!?! funny.

Would I put this film on a list of must watch movies? No. But for Tardy Critic, I will give it two paws up.

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Review by Phil Wels