Catwoman has not been treated kindly by the movies. Anne Hathaway played the character beautifully, but got stuck with an incoherent sprawling mess of a movie. Michelle Pfeiffer looked fabulous in her latex outfit, but got stuck with another incoherent mess of a movie. In both cases the the respective directors (Christopher Nolan and Tim Burton) turned in their weakest movies when they incorporated the catwoman character. Clearly attractive women with whips have a detrimental effect on screenwriters and directors.
On the plus side the movie characters have resulted in a lot of great fan art. This particular take on the Michelle Pfeiffer version is by hotcake on deviant art.
I have to agree with you here. Michelle Pfiefer’s character seemed ditzy and clueless. I am a fan of Tim Burton, but that Batman movie was awful. Hathaway’s version did a better job of at least having some sexual tension with Batman, but still left a lot to be desired.
On the other hand, Julie Newmar’s character was sexy and confident and she was always outsmarting Batman, but her sexual tension with him was obvious. She seemed to want to slow down so that she could get caught, to try to bring him over to ‘the dark side’ and he was always trying to make her straight.
I never saw the halle berry movie, since it was so universaally panned. Ugh, maybe someday someone will get this awesome dominant female character done right. I attribute a good portion of my submissive qualities to Julie Newmar.
Julie Newmar is always the definitive catwoman for me. Her original shows were before my time, but they made a big impression in the re-runs. Even the still shots of her as catwoman have a lot of power.
I liked Anne Hathaway’s version a lot. Both the tension with Batman and her general approach to the character. It was just that the entire movie sucked around it. That was a huge disappointment.
Like you, I’ve never seen the Hally Berry movie. Best avoided I think.
-paltego
I LOVED Michelle Pfeifer’s catwoman outfit! But yeah, the movie sucked.
What happened to Michael Keaton? Did he die or something?
He had a strange career arc. Had that breakout film with NightShift, then two big roles in Tim Burton movies (first Beetlejuice and then Batman), followed by nothing. Didn’t really screw up, just kind of vanished. And it wasn’t like Batman was such a defining role (like James Bond can be) that it dominated the rest of his career. Just seemed to fade.
-paltego