Sunday, January 25, 2009

Barbie as Catwoman

"Catwoman" is a 2004 superhero film which starred Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, Benjamin Bratt, Lambert Wilson, Frances Conroy, and Alex Borstein. It was poorly received by critics and audiences. Halle Berry plays Patience Phillips, a shy and timid artist working for a devious cosmetics company out to make money without worrying about the side-effects caused by the defective beauty products they were selling. She is drowned but brought back to life by the temple cat she had seen and tried to rescue earlier (The temple cat is actually a messenger of the Egyptian goddess Bast). She is transformed into Catwoman, a warrior with the force of a cat, who prowls the night in search of justice.

This Catwoman story is totally different from that in "Batman Returns (1992)", directed by Tim Burton and starred Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Christopher Walken as Max Shreck (a corrupt businessman), Danny DeVito as the grotesque Penguin Oswald Cobblepot plotting to take control of Gotham City and Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle/Catwoman. As a quiet and shy secretary for Max Shreck, Selina transforms into Catwoman when she is resuscitated by a group of cats after she is thrown from the top of Max Shreck's building when she discovers his plan to build a super power station and drain Gotham of its electricity. Michelle Pfeiffer was so hot as Catwoman that they couldn't kill her off and wanted a Catwoman spin-off but the film was stuck in development hell for years and ended up becoming the critically-panned "Catwoman (2004)".

Barbie as Catwoman - I got it because she looked quite cute in her costume

Barbie as Halle Berry. Halle Berry's breakthrough feature film role was in the 1991 "Jungle Fever". This led to a role in "The Flintstones (1994)" playing bad girl turned good Sharon Stone and guess who played the villain in "Catwoman"? Sharon Stone.

Halle Belly? Halle's role as Catwoman was sort of a belly flop for her. She won a worst actress Razzie Award in 2005 for Catwoman and was gracious enough to accept the award in person. This after she had won an Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001 for her performance in "Monster's Ball", becoming the first and, as of 2008, only woman of African-American descent to have won the award for Best Actress.



Her cat mask, to mask her real identity. Halle Berry also portrayed the mutant superhero Storm (Storm by Toy Biz here) in the film adaptation of the comic book series "X-Men (2000)" and its sequels, "X2: X-Men United (2003)" and "X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)". In 2001, Berry appeared in the film "Swordfish", which featured her first on-screen nude scene. At first, she refused to be filmed topless in a sunbathing scene, but she changed her mind when Warner Brothers raised her fee substantially. The brief flash of her breasts added $500,000 to her fee.

The inscription on her back says: "©2002 Mattel, Inc. Indonesia" Well, what do you know? Not everything is made in China.


As Bond girl Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson in the 2002 blockbuster "Die Another Day" alongside MI6 Agent OO7 James Bond played by Pierce Brosnan, Berry recreated a scene from Dr. No, bursting from the surf to be greeted by James Bond as Ursula Andress had 40 years earlier. Berry has said of the scene: "It's splashy", "exciting", "sexy", "provocative" and "it will keep me still out there after winning an Oscar." Good for you, Jinx ;p

2 comments:

Bracken said...

Hey Hey Hey,

Catwoman and Halle, what a (seemingly) great combination.
Shame about the film.

I wonder - would those clothes fit on a female Sideshow body i wonder...?

alex teo said...

hi bracken, what was supposed to be a hit turned out to be a flop, no thanks to the script writers. no one can save the film based on the bad script.

interesting observation about fitting the clothes on a female Sideshow body....hmmm