For the latest episode of Honest Trailers, Screen Junkies have got their claws into Catwoman. It follows last week's Honest Trailer of Logan, a film that was so hard to criticise even a guest-starring Deadpool couldn't help. This week's choice is something of an easier target though.

Catwoman was the 2004 interpretation of the anti-hero, and bizarrely ignored all of the character's DC comics history and backstory. Instead of playing Selina Kyle, Halle Berry stars as a newly created character called Patience Phillips, who gets turned into the title character by feline messengers of the goddess Bast. There was no Batman (or any other DC hero) and Catwoman's nemesis was Laurel Hedare (played by Sharon Stone), the owner of a cosmetics company. The film was universally panned by critics and on Rotten Tomatoes it currently holds a rating of 9 percent. Produced for the sum of $100 million, it only grossed $82 million at the worldwide box office. It also crops up regularly on worst superhero film listings.

As a result, the Screen Junkies team certainly don't take it easy on the movie. Pointing out that however bad or good Wonder Woman is - though Wonder Woman reviews have so far praised the film - Catwoman already set the bar pretty low for female-led superhero films. The Honest Trailer highlights one particular fight sequence that contains a large number of seemingly unnecessary edits (37 for 18 seconds of screen-time), and mocks the cat mannerisms that Berry is forced to act (hissing, etc.). While the plot could have been an exercise in female empowerment, the trailer points out that maybe "evil moisturiser" wasn't the best choice of weapon in that case. It also calls out some attempts to make Berry seem frumpy, and shakes its head over, "the weirdest game of basketball ever filmed."

But always willing to try to find some good in every film, Screen Junkies at least gives credit to Berry for her extremely good-natured acceptance speech at the Golden Raspberry awards that year. They also point out that Marvel had their own disappointments with female superheroes at the time, with the 2005 film of Elektra getting a brief thumbs-down.

In hindsight, the 2004 film does seem an odd project and one that was perhaps doomed from the start. Michelle Pfeiffer's interpretation in Batman Returns remains a fan favourite, Anne Hathaway was solid as Selina in The Dark Knight Rises, and the host of TV actresses from the '60s Batman series were always fun to watch as the purring villain. The next version we're due to see on cinema screens will be as part of DCEU's Gotham City Sirens cast, although we still don't know who will be donning the cat-ears in that yet.

In the meantime, it's always fun watching the Screen Junkies folk have a few pointed laughs at certain films, and we look forward to see what their next target will be.

Next: Why Have Female Superhero Movies Failed (So Far)?

Source: Screen Junkies