Halle Berry is celebrating the 20th anniversary of “Catwoman” with admirable poise.
Though the 2004 comic book movie drew horrid reviews and earned Berry a Razzie Award for “worst actress,” she argued Thursday on “The Tonight Show” that it’s found a whole new audience these days — and she disagreed with critics.
“I loved it,” Berry told Jimmy Fallon. “I mean, it got panned. You know, the critics said it sucked balls. That’s not that bad; I’ve gotten worse reviews — and balls aren’t that bad.”
Though audience members and social media users alike have surely used those words to describe the film before, professional critics were slightly more eloquent in their reviews — and slammed the cartoonish depiction of Batman’s off-and-on ally as “a very poor effort.”
“Catwoman’s director, a visual-effects specialist named [Jean-Cristophe] Pitof [Comar], is not contained by the rules of filmmaking,” wrote Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern in 2004. “Scenes that make sense? Nonsense. Characters with inner lives? Utterly passé.”
Berry admirably leaned into those reactions almost immediately and accepted her Razzie Award in person — becoming the most famous celebrity to ever do so — and recently posed topless with several cats to commemorate the film’s 20th birthday.
The Oscar winner (in 2001 for “Monster’s Ball) even claimed to have noticed newfound appreciation for the film, which grossed only $82 million worldwide on a budget of $100 million, and she used the viral title of Charli XCX’s latest album, “Brat,” to describe her transformed perception as the film’s star.
“What I’m happy about is that the children have found it now on the internet, and they love it,” Berry told Fallon. “So it’s so vindicating. Because now they’re saying it’s cool and what the heck was everybody’s problem with it, so I’m like, ‘I’m so brat now.’”
Chitose Suzuki/Associated Press
Fallon naturally couldn’t help himself and cleverly christened Berry “Bratwoman.”
The film’s average review score of 8% marked one of the lowest in Berry’s career — and “Catwoman’s” plot bafflingly revolved around the unethical production of an anti-aging skin cream — Berry argued that the reviews are worse than the movie itself.
“People have the freedom to discover it on their own without a reminder of what critics said about it,” she told Entertainment Weekly in July. “Younger generations don’t know what was said back then. They discover it on their own and enjoy its merits without being mind-led to think a certain way.”
When asked whether she’d reprise her role in the future, Berry didn’t flinch.
“If I could direct it,” she declared Thursday.
