What was bad:
- The DVD cover. The cat "helmet" looks so tacky that that alone can put you off renting the movie. It looks better in the movie.
- The CGI sucks — but then, what CGI doesn't? Someone asked me what they need CGI for in a Catwoman movie, anyway — remember that this is a catwoman, not the Catwoman. She is not Selina, and she is a
metahuman
(a mutant
, in Marvel-speak) — and then of course, even Selina was metahuman in the now defunct Birds of Prey show. The extra speed and agility and most of the free running are CGI, and it looks like a video game.

What was dubious:
- Non-Selina Catwoman. This doesn't make the movie less fun, but we probably won't see a Selina-movie in a long time now.
- Some of the fights are shot in that close-to-the-actor/four-different-angles-a-second fashion that seems so
en vogue
these days.
- The fights and action sequences do not try to be bigger and better than everything that came before them; they instead attempt to be reasonable in the context of the story — which of course is a super(anti)heroine story, so luckily, that's not too reasonable to begin with. I almost appreciated that, you might not.
- Predictable plot. You be the judge of whether you can deal with that.
- Halle Berry. I've never been a fan, and I'm not a fan now, but I must admit she did OK or better.
The good:
- Pretty good pacing. No scene is too long, and the sequence is good. There seems to be a reasonable mix of action, plot-propelling, "romantic" and fun scenes. And then some more action scenes.
- The soundtrack worked rather well. I have no idea whether I'd enjoy the songs outside of the movie (like I do with the songs used in the first Matrix), but within the context of the movie, it worked like a charm.
The upshot:
This is
not a
must-see
. I do maintain though that it
is a
can-see
. It's innocent (and somewhat shallow) entertainment for a Sunday afternoon, the way movies like the more charming
Big are. It's an action music video, the way the visually more compelling first
Matrix tried to be. And I easily found it more fun than the "first four" Batman movies, beating them one by one or combined.
So in short, I'm not quite sure why this one got so much flak. Sure, some of it was bad, but not Tim Burton-bad. If you want Selina, read the comics. If you don't like to read, watch
Batman — the animated series — that's as close to a "definitive Batman" as you get, and it's not too bad in terms of Catwoman, either. And if you think you can do better, come to
Gotham Knights MUSH and prove it — the
Catwoman slot is open.
Tatiana Azundris on : Batman Begins (2005)