Catwoman a purr-fectly awful hairball

CATWOMAN isn’t just unruly, it’s a total cat-astrophe.

Halle Berry is a beauty, so building a superhero movie around her figure and cartoonishly big brown eyes must have seemed like a no-brainer.

But whoever handed Berry a leather bustier without handing her a coherent script should be smacked on the nose with a newspaper.

The Catwoman from Batman was a villain. In this film, there is no mention of Gotham City, and the character's thievery isn't celebrated, but shrugged off.

Borrowing from the superior Spider-Man, the first half of Catwoman dwells on the dweebish alter ego of the title character. Berry plays Patience Philips, a graphic designer who could best be described as mousy.

Her transformation to Catwoman is a story of unprecedented lameness.

Patience works for a cosmetics company run by Laurel Hedare (Sharon Stone). When Patience discovers the company is peddling poison, she is attacked and drowned by corporate goons. Her body is pounced on by an Egyptian cat, who imparts to Patience the breath of life and the gift of feline agility.

Patience doesn't run to the cops, even though she's been befriended by a hunky detective (Benjamin Bratt).

Instead, she visits an eccentric old lady (Frances Conroy) whose name is on the cat's collar and who informs Patience she's now part of an ancient sisterhood, free to express her duality as both a loyal creature and a free spirit.

The script doesn't know what this means any more than we do.

The onset of her catlike attributes, such as hissing at other animals and scoffing seafood on a date with the cop, is mildly comic. But the significance of it is hugely problematic. On her first night of strutting in her cat costume, Patience interrupts a theft at a jewellery store then goes home with the goods herself.

The next morning, it's not clear if she remembers where she got the stuff, so we're never sure if this is a Jekyll-and-Hyde scenario or if Catwoman is a villain.

When she investigates the shenanigans at the cosmetics company, she brandishes a whip and toys not only with her duplicitous boss but also with the cop.

If the soft-spoken Patience learned a life lesson from prowling around as Catwoman, the film might be a kick-butt chick flick.

Her interaction with a man-hungry co-worker (Alex Borstein) suggests it's aimed at a female audience, as does the lite R&B soundtrack.

Or if the effects were any good, it might be a male fantasy. When she springs from wall to wall, it's more like a cricket than a cat. But the movie is neither, nor is it a satire of sexism or superheroes. Catwoman is the worst movie of the year. It might take Berry more than nine lives to shake the kitty litter from her reputation.