Counter Culture

Director: Pitof
Certificate PG-13 (USA) 12A (UK)
UK film theatre general release 12th August 2004
Reviewed by Al Martin

Warner Bros. Pictures presents in association with Village Roadshow Pictures a Di Novi Pictures production, Catwoman, starring HALLE BERRY, BENJAMIN BRATT, LAMBERT WILSON, FRANCES CONROY and SHARON STONE. The film is directed by PITOF, produced by DENISE DI NOVI and EDWARD L. McDONNELL. MICHAEL FOTTRELL, BENJAMIN MELNIKER, MICHAEL E. USLAN, ROBERT KIRBY and BRUCE BERMAN are the film’s executive producers. Screenplay by JOHN BRANCATO & MICHAEL FERRIS and JOHN ROGERS, story by THERESA REBECK and JOHN BRANCATO & MICHAEL FERRIS, based on characters created by BOB KANE and published by DC Comics. The director of photography is THIERRY ARBOGAST, BILL BRZESKI is the production designer, and the film is edited by SYLVIE LANDRA. Music by KLAUS BADELT.

The film will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by Village Roadshow Pictures.

Patience Philips aka Catwoman is a Graphic designer with not much of a social life, up until she saves a cat called Midnight supposedly an “Egyptian Mau” with spiritual powers, from falling off a ledge while incidentally sparking romantic interest from a cop/detective (Benjamin Bratt- typecast yet again) who mistakenly believes Miss Philips to be attempting suicide. The dialogue between the two stars is cheesy & embarassing – much like the script of the entire film, but to the point where its enjoyably funny.

Sharone Stone also has a major role in this film, unlike Halle who seemed to take her character seriously, stone played the role of a comic book villain with deliberately over- the-top acting.

Photo by Courtesy Warner Brothers – © 2004 Warner Brothers. All rights reserved.

Halle seemed to struggle and tried too hard to be sexy. Her costume is ridiculous, low cut leather pants a push up bra and not much else – not that I’m complaining. I certainly found Stone more appealing who shows less flesh. Less is more in this case (at least for me anyway). The same goes for the better Catwoman costume used in Batman 2.

Patience aquires her mysterious catlike powers from the Egyptian Mau she saved, but in actual fact the cat was “testing her” & was in no danger of falling from the ledge. When Halle’s Patience Philips overhears something she shouldn’t about a dodgy face cream, some thugs who work for the company are ordered to kill her, they take several shots before she is flushed through a big pipe and onto some muddy terrain.

Thats where this Egyptian Mau comes in, Patience is lying there dead covered in muddy stuff, the special cat who brings all his cat mates, looks at her for a bit then crawls up on her chest and sort of kisses her, Patience wakes from the dead with amazing super cat powers. This scene was embarassingly awful. I had to bite my lip to keep myself from laughing.

Now the previously unsociable Graphic Designer is full of confidence and the first thing she does is go and get herself sacked from her job. She seems not to need earn a living now that she has her newfound cat powers. She does steal some jewellery but promptly returns them as soon as she realizes what she/catwoman has done.

She is still unaware at this point that she has been murdered etc so visits the mystically ridiculous owner of the cat & gets clued up, as ya do. This fuels her to seek revenge and prevent all the millions of people succumbing to the dastardly plan to control the population of the world with face cream.

I dont know wheather to give it a 1/10 or a 10/10 for being so bad it’s good.