Cinema Connoisseur: Berry makes one damn fine feline

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Catwoman (2004)

Fanshawe has cat scratch fever! The Fanshawe Student Union's new social network (www.fsu.ca) allows students to connect and communicate on a wide variety of topics. And what is one of the most popular topics? Kitties. People are posting pictures of their own kittens and sharing their love of felines. A cat club has even been formed here on campus. Hell, you may even see some kittens sashaying down the halls soon enough. There may be pussycats galore on campus.

To capitalize on this popularity, I decided to take a look at the greatest feline character in pop culture (sorry, Garfield). She's flashier than The Flash, more superb than Superman, and she's got more prominent nipples than Batman. Catwoman has a storied history as a comic book character dating back to 1940, so it was with great excitement that I sat down recently to watch a film more than six decades in the making, the 2004 summer blockbuster Catwoman, starring Halle Berry.

In Catwoman, Halle Berry portrays Patience Phillips, a meek young graphic designer who works for a cosmetics company. Her life is turned upside down when she gets a chance to work on the company's hot new product, a cream that reverses the aging process. When Patience finds out that the cream has horrible disfiguring tendencies, she is hunted down and killed by the company's security.

But that is not the end of the story for Patience. She is brought back to life by the kiss of a mysterious cat. She is re-born with all of the abilities that a cat would possess, such as the ability to dunk a basketball and thwart criminals. So for those who thought that all cats could do all day was lay around and crap in boxes, you are sadly mistaken.

With these amazing new abilities and a black skin-tight suit that leaves little to the imagination, Patience becomes Catwoman. From there she goes on the prowl, trying to find out why she was murdered and seeking vengeance upon those responsible.

Berry is a delight as Patience/Catwoman. She plays the role with just the right amount of campiness. Berry won the Best Actress Oscar three years earlier for her role in Monster's Ball, an honour that should have been bestowed upon her once again for this film. Between her performance in this film, and her previous work as Storm in the X-Men films, she has proven to be quite the heroine. With all due respect to the likes of Adam West, Christopher Reeves and Hugh Jackman, nobody portrays a superhero like Ms. Halle Berry.

So ignore everything you have ever read about Catwoman... well, except for the previous few paragraphs of this article. It is one of the most underrated films of all time. I would go as far as to say that it is a purr-fect movie. In fact, I would say that is one of the most cat-isfying film experiences I have ever engaged in. These cat puns doing anything for you? In all seriousness, I do hope that the old expression about cats having nine lives is true, so that the public can be treated to eight long overdue sequels. My feelings about Catwoman can be summed up in one word — meow!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars