Review Of The Catwoman Movie Film Studies Essay

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Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. is the biggest American movie and telecasting production company. They produce immense sums of films in all genres with large budgets. The company had reached large successes since its founding twelvemonth in 1903. In the yesteryear more than a 100 twelvemonth its productions received many awards from different foundations. However the award received contains non merely positive acknowledgments but besides negative 1s.

How is it possible that a immense company like this makes errors that can take to a bad repute? What can be the errors they make? How make these errors affect the hereafter of the staff of the company, the managers, the histrions and the company itself?

I would wish to happen the replies for these inquiries through a film failure that was the biggest floating-point operation in the decennary.

I will analyze as many facets as possible that can take a film that is so thirstily awaited to a immense failure. To analyze the facets I will present you to the unsuccessful narrative of the 2004 film 'Catwoman ' .

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2. Who is the Catwoman?

Catwoman, viz. Selina Kyle has been described as the ultimate phantasy character who is a guardian of the underdog who is non above the jurisprudence when it comes to her ain desires. She is non an ordinary adult female due to her powerful strength. She is sleek, cryptic and thanks to the leather-clad, whip-wielding costume, extremist sexy. ( Bowes, 2004 )

2.1 History of catwoman

There are many versions of the beginning of Catwoman and back-story seen in amusing books over the decennaries but it can primary be attached to the to the Batman Universe series as the most popular female character of the narrative.

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Batman 's Godhead, Bob Kane was a great film fan and his love for movie provided the drift for several Batman characters, among them, Catwoman. He wanted to attach a female character into the amusing books to give them a sex entreaty and person who could appeal to female readers as a female Batman.

`` I felt that adult females were feline animals and work forces were more similar Canis familiariss. While Canis familiariss are faithful and friendly, cats are cool, detached, and undependable. I felt much heater with Canis familiariss around me-cats are every bit difficult to understand as adult females are. Men feel surer of themselves with a male friend than a adult female. You ever need to maintain adult females at arm 's length. We do n't desire anyone taking over our psyches, and adult females have a wont of making that. So there 's a love-resentment thing with adult females. I guess adult females will experience that I 'm being chauvinistic to talk this manner, but I do experience that I 've had better relationships with male friends than adult females. With adult females, one time the love affair is over, someway they ne'er remain my friends. ''

Kane 1989, pp. 107-108

That catwoman character appeared in immense Numberss of sketchs over the decennaries. After it became really popular in this sort of media, others started to utilize it as their superhero. In 1966 catwoman appeared in the Batman telecasting series so more than twenty old ages subsequently in the success film Batman Returns.

In Batman Returns Selina Kyle is played by Michelle Pfeiffer. Here she is depicted as the lonely, frustrated, yet duteous and efficient secretary of corrupt baron Max Shreck. After she by chance discovers his secret plan to construct a power works that would steal Gotham 's electricity, Shreck pushes her out the window of his top narrative office. Selina is resurrected by a group of cats after her decease and she is given powerful strength and features of cats. She goes place and makes her cat costume herself and goes after her liquidator. She besides starts a love affair with Batman and joins him in the pursuit of the evil caput of the company. ( IMDb )

Batman Returns was first showed in 1992 and it received 6.9/10 stars with 80,751 ballots on IMDb international film database. This means that the film was chiefly liked by the populace and critics. On its opening twenty-four hours on June 19 the film earned $ 45.69 million which was the highest opening weekend of any film released up to that point. The film went to number of $ 266.83 million all together. It was the 3rd highest grossing movie in America of 1992 and the 6th worldwide. It received 14 nominations and 2 victor awards from 7 different establishments including the award by Golden Raspberry for Danny DeVito as worst back uping histrion campaigner.

In 2004 another film was released. This was the first catwoman release which stars the catwoman character as the chief character which the film is approximately.

3. Catwoman 2004: The Movie

Catwoman is the narrative of shy, sensitive creative person Patience Philips ( Halle Berry ) , a adult female who ca n't look to halt apologizing for her ain being. She works as a in writing interior decorator for Hedare Beauty, a mammoth cosmetics company on the brink of let go ofing a radical anti-aging merchandise. When Patience unwittingly happens upon a dark secret her employer is concealing, she finds herself in the center of a corporate confederacy. What happens following alterations Patience everlastingly. In a mystical turn of destiny, she is transformed into a adult female with the strength, velocity, legerity and ultra-keen senses of a cat. With her newfound art and feline intuition, Patience becomes Catwoman, a sleek and furtive animal equilibrating on the thin line between good and bad. Like any wildcat, she 's unsafe, elusive and wild. ( IMDb ) She opens a box from her cupboard with an extremist tight tegument demoing leather costume. Her escapades are complicated by a burgeoning relationship with Tom Lone, a bull who has fallen for Patience but can non agitate his captivation with the cryptic Catwoman. The things around catwoman do non travel easy as she is attached to many offenses go oning in the metropolis. However the lone offense she is guilty of is interrupting into a jewellery shop and stealing gems. Subsequently she returns these and says sorry. Unfortunately, the metropolis believes that this new animal is evil and causes most of the offenses go oning in their metropolis recently. Tom Lone tries to halt her but he does non cognize that Patience who he is already get downing a relationship with is the same lady who he is seeking to set behind bars.

Reading the secret plans of Batman Returns and Catwoman a batch of similarities can be noticed. Actually the both narratives of going catwomen are absolutely same as both ladies die by an evil company president and are resurrected as catwomen after their deceases. Selina is more focussed on salvaging the inexperienced person but Patience is non still clear about her intent and she some bad things before recognizing her existent intent. Still the biggest difference is the narratives are the importance of the characters. Patience is the lone chief character who is the whole narrative about while Batman and Selina are sharing this topographic point.

The film was release on 23 July, 2004 in the United States but non even the Oscar-winner Halle Berry warmed the critics to the movie. It was released some hebdomads after Spider-Man 2, Catwoman paled in comparing with that amusing book escapade, which broke box office records. It is hard to watch Catwoman prowling over metropolis roofs without believing Spiderman did the same fast one with so much energy some hebdomads before. ( Bowes, 2004 )

This was merely one of the critics the film received out of many after the release. There were many ailments sing about all facets that can be examined in a film.

3.1 Comparing Catwoman with the original character of the Batman films

When Box Office came up with the thought of making a whole new film about the so successful catwoman character of the Batman films the biggest inquiry was that can the new film be accepted by the fans of Batman. How the alterations in the narrative and the histrions will impact the result of the film? Who would be the best manager, histrions and actresses to take to do a immense success? And there were so many inquiries could be raised and even Warner Bros. tried to do good picks for these inquiries it happened that they could non. They likely did non see many facets carefully plenty and fell in a really awkward state of affairs when the film came out.

3.2 `` Pitof ''

Jean-Christophe `` Pitof '' Comar is a Gallic movie and ocular consequence manager primary known about the films Vidocq and Catwoman. Pitof had ne'er created a large budget American film movie before Catwoman. The lone one film he directed before was the Gallic speech production Vidocq which received 6.5/10 evaluation on IMDb. Sing his first film as a success Warner Bros were brave plenty to engage him for the way for Catwoman. Probably that was the first and biggest error they made. ( IMDb )

Warner Bros likely chose him because of his good repute of ocular effects and they knew that the new film will necessitate to incorporate a whole clump of these. Still it is really difficult to image how could they take and swear person with $ 100 million who made merely one film before and that one was non even American.

Harmonizing critical reappraisals about the film Pitof had made about all the errors that can be made while making a film. This includes severely chosen histrions and actresses, screen Hagiographas, clip direction, duologues, framing, costumes. ( Rotten Tomatoes, 2004-2005 )

3.3 Actors

One of the inquiries that was raised when Halle Berry was chosen as Catwoman was that can she fit for the legendary public presentations of Eartha Kitt in 1960s Batman series or of Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman returns? Harmonizing to reexamine the reply was 'not even ' .

There are many ailments with the pick of Halle Berry. Harmonizing to critics her playing was over overdone while seeking to be a cat. The character of Patience is no longer a human. Her disposition to siss at Canis familiariss and devour canned fish, every bit good as her impulse to bury her face in catmint, finally convert her that something is traveling on. Unfortunately, the feline personality traits emerge in a instead gawky manner. `` You about expect the character to seek out a litter tray or a scratch pole, merely to turn out the point of being a cat. '' ( Bowes, 2004 )

Other ailments were about the colour of the chosen actress. A critic commented on film reappraisal site Rotten Tomatoes that `` It is like James Bond being black. '' It might sound really racist but if we think profoundly into this statement it might be really mistreating for fans that their favourite character is played by a so different actress than earlier. They expected Seline who is now Patinece to be similar as she was earlier but they received something else.

French republics Conroy plays a recluse cat lady, Ophelia who becomes the wise man of Patience. Her function is to explicate what is reasonably obvious already that the immature adult female had turned into a cat. Unfortunately Ophelia looks like she walked out of an episode of a funeral parlor play and seems to be hankering for a nice line or two. ( Bowes, 2004 )

Another large star comes up in the film: Sharon Stone who plays the evil character but who in the first clip in her calling is non frigid plenty. Harmonizing to rumours there were some jobs with the actress during the shots as she was so displeased of her function and the whole undertaking that she did non take the shot as serious and she really answered her cell phone during the cinematography.

This was non the merely one thing that did non travel easy during the cinematography but besides Berry suffered an hurt that landed her in the infirmary when she crashed into a piece of equipment. These jobs likely would hold non happened if the planning and directing would hold been more careful. Here is another point that can be written to the measure of Pitof.

3.4 Screening and duologues

Screenings and duologues were so bad that some scenes needed to be reshot merely 30 yearss before its scheduled release. Critics review that even the dawdler of the film was so bad but it could non be better anyways as there were non truly as many good shootings in the whole film that could be chosen for the dawdler. The concluding dawdler was redone several times. How this could go on? We can state `` excessively many custodies in the cooky jar '' because every bit many as 28 scratch awls worked on the books which led to really bad duologues. Merely the figure of authors of the film exceeded the usual figure of authors of a film: Bob Kane, Theresa Rebeck, Michael Ferris, John D. Brancato, John Rogers. The duologues and the scenes did non fit plenty with plot line and even if Berry seemed like doing a nice occupation to play her act she had a really hard occupation when she were forced to utter absurd lines like `` It 's over clip. '' ( Riemer, 2004 )

In the beginning sequence of the film contains a collage of old newspaper film editing and ancient manuscripts about the history of the cat. It seems like the manager suggests a deepness to the movie through this sequence but later it is ne'er comes back in the plot line. Basically they put something into the movie that they ne'er talk about subsequently. This is wholly unneeded and it seems like it is merely at that place to do the film longer or make some cool beginning screen. ( Bowes, 2004 )

The narrative of the film is even excessively predictable after the luckless and ordinary lady turns into a superhero who needs to take a retaliation on her slayings and demands to salvage the hapless people of the metropolis from offense. We can state that all superhero films are about the same subject but at the same clip somehow they are created more interesting. We can besides raise a inquiry that can a lady be a successful superhero? Harmonizing to statistics the reply could be that it is likely impossible since heroes were ever been males. Most films with female superheroes failed like Supergirl, Catwoman, Elektra, Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li, Blood. Why is it like that? The reply could be that the managers of these films try to do the characters every bit sexy as possible alternatively of working more on the narrative and doing it more interesting and exciting.

3.5 Costumes

Reappraisals about the costume designs looking in the movie portion the sentiments. Movie critics dislike them opposed to male fans of the film who think that the lone one ground to watch the film was merely because of the sexy costumes.

Harmonizing to the first catwoman costume that appeared in the original amusing book series our superhero foremost wore merely a cat mask which was later alteration to a jumper with a goon that had cat ears on the top. Subsequently in the batman films the costume was changed to the tight black latex suit that showed non much tegument. In Pitof 's film there is a immense impact put on the costume. It suggests that the whole film is around demoing Halle Berry 's tegument and doing her into a domina-like sex symbol. The members of `` Gothamists '' website think that Pitof is seeking excessively difficult to do the new character better than in Batman Returns by seting a Bikini on Berry. `` At least the costume stores will hold something to gain on for Halloween. '' The cat suit was ever one of the most liked wear for costume events and after a new cat film it merely even traveling to be better.

3.6 Turnout

After the film was released the reappraisals were expressly negative and besides Warner Bros made really bad incomes. The $ 100 million budget film merely made a domestic gross of $ 40 million and another $ 42 from foreign states. This means that the film itself did non even do as much money as it cost. Unfortunately, there are no information available about the DVD gross revenues income. Warner Bros might hold made at least every bit much on it as the movie cost.

On Rotten Tomatoes it received 10 % mark and 3.2/10 on IMDb. On Rotten Tomatoes critics are really rough and heavy. Even on the gap page it appears that `` Halle Berry is the lone bright topographic point, but even she ca n't salvage this absurd action thriller. ''

3.7 Awards

The movie was nominated 7 times on the Golden Raspberry or `` Razzies '' award. Razzies awarded for the worst films of the twelvemonth. Catwoman was nominated for worst Picture, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Couple, Director, Screenplay and with this it acquire in to the competition of Razzies ' `` Special Worst of Our 25 Old ages Awards '' and it won first topographic point. This means that in the past 25 old ages at that place was no other film made that received so many bad reappraisals and award as Pitof 's Catwoman. ( Razzies )

3.8 Subsequently

How did this impact the callings of the staff? Obviously the 1 who came out of this the worst was Pitof who had ne'er acquire another chance to do a film so far.

Halle Berry was n't so luckless as she got 12 Acts of the Apostless in films since 2004 ( X-man 2006, Perfect Stranger 2007, Things We Lost in the Fire 2007, etc ) Out of these 12 production 5 are under production still and are awaited to come out. Berry did non see Catwoman as something that can impact her calling hard even if she has now a Golden Razzie award for worst actress next to her Oscar.

Sharon Stone besides had 18 Acts of the Apostless since Catwoman and Frances Conroy had 21. It seems like that the lone one individual who came out bad from this production was the manager and possibly Warner Bros who did non do any money on the production.

4. Own sentiment

Harmonizing to the assignment to analyze a immense direction failure of our times I decided to take a film as my involvement is tremendous in this media. There were a batch to take from. I was wavering between Transformers 2: Retaliation of the fallen, Land of the doomed, The escapade of Pluto Nash and Catwoman. I watched all 4 films and I did non like three of them at all. I eventually chose the one I really liked and this was Catwoman. I besides made some primary research doing `` interviews '' with friends about the film. Without overstating the result of the research I have to state that there was no 1 who did non like the film and really have seen it.

I realized that I made a immense undertaking for myself because I needed to watch something over and over with a really critical oculus. First I did non read any of the critical reappraisals so I do non fall in that mistake that they change my ain sentiment. For fist two tickers in English and Hungarian the merely one facet I did non like was the particular effects. I saw them excessively computing machine like but I needed to recognize that the film was made more than 6 old ages ago when this engineering was non every bit good as today. After watching it once more and once more I started to acquire nervous as there is nil I can be critical about. So I read the reappraisals.

They were really critical and negative. Most of them made a large affect on me and after re-watching I could detect some of them. I was certain about the bad pick of Pitof as he had no background in American film devising.

I really liked all of the histrions in the film but noticed sometimes eldritch and over overdone facial looks and motion particularly by Sharon Stone and Berry. These were really annoying and pathetic.

I was non much abused by Patience 's cat costume. It was obvious that some really sexy leather piece of bantam fabrics would be chosen for a 21th century superhero film. I do non believe that critics should speak excessively much negative things about this or they do because they likely have non seen Batman. It 's true that Batman is n't demoing much of his tegument but his muscular six-pack costume was besides really sexy. In my sentiment this facet of knocking in catwoman is merely an add-on to the list. Due to my research most of the work forces I asked liked the film because the sexy Berry and her bantam costume.

I was really disquieted about sing the duologues critically. Watching it in English with captions I could non truly happen any of these `` pathetic '' lines but this can be due to my ain English linguistic communication accomplishment. Probably person whose female parent linguistic communication is English would hold felt that something merely sounds incorrect. In the Magyar version there were no errors but evidently the transcribers will non set anything incorrect in their ain linguistic communication if they feel that it does non sound right in the original linguistic communication.

Overall, after sing the film 5 times in two linguistic communications with two sorts of captions and without captions, reading walls of texts by critics and fans and doing primary researches I can state that the film should hold come out so bad as it does. The immense money loss and the little income can be due to the really negative critics that were written fight after the release day of the month. I know this from first manus. If I can non make up one's mind what to watch in the film I go to Rotten Tomatoes and look into the reappraisals. If they are really negative so I will ne'er travel and pay money for it. The lone manner to might watch it is to download it subsequently.

Making this scrutiny of failure the biggest thing I have learned was that how much the cyberspace and person who is name a film critic can impact the result of a new film release.

Updated: Nov 01, 2022
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Review Of The Catwoman Movie Film Studies Essay. (2020, Jun 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/review-of-the-catwoman-movie-film-studies-new-essay

Review Of The Catwoman Movie Film Studies Essay essay
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