Catwoman, a comic book heroine long celebrated by feminists and fans of the genre, earned her big screen debut in 2004. The movie, Catwoman, which starred the actress of the hour, Halle Berry, opened to mixed reviews and garnered tepid box office sales. The cast of the movie included the renowned actress, Sharon Stone, as well as Alex Borstein and Benjamin Bratt. The plot of Catwoman the movie revolves around Berry's character, a graphic artist named Patience Phillips. As a result of poking her nose too far into a massive cosmetics industry conspiracy, Phillips is hunted down and executed. Yet thanks to the contrivance of the movie--that Patience Phillips is actually a descendant of the Egyptian cat goddess, Bast--Berry is reborn as a superhero with a plethora of cat-like powers and intuitions. The resolute Catwoman finds herself pitted against the evil forces of the cosmetics company, led by Stone, who plays a woman past her prime but desperate, à la Dorian Gray, to do away with her aging vis-à-vis a pact with the devil. The devil, in this case, is the Hedare Cosmetics company. Catwoman runs only 104 minutes long, and it is rated PG-13. The super-heroine Catwoman has appeared in other movies and TV shows as well, most notably Batman Returns in 1992. Michelle Pfeiffer played Catwoman in that movie, and her latex costume and wily demeanor probably better suggested the uncagable nature of the comic character than Berry's rendition. Catwoman has also inspired a number of ancillary comic book characters as well as merchandise, CDs, and numerous fan websites.
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