Movie

Batman Returns (1992)

This sequel to the 1989 blockbuster had Michael Keaton reprise his role as the brooding caped crusader and Tim Burton return to the director’s chair. No iconic Joker, but a villainous duo with Danny DeVito as the evil Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer as the devious and sexually charged Catwoman. The tone is akin to The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), with Gotham City in peril over the festive season and henchmen dressed in bizarre costumes.

The first half-hour gives us origin stories for the two antagonists. Backgrounds aren’t faithful to the source material, with Oswald Cobblepot (aka The Penguin) disfigured at birth and abandoned by his uncaring wealthy parents. That means locked in a cage and tossed into an icy river. Two decades later, the grown-up villain makes his grand entrance. A surprise Christmas present bursts open and unleashes a goon squad to cause havoc. Batman responds and has a chance encounter with a woman named Selina Kyle. Sound familiar?

Instead of a jewel thief, she’s an accident-prone secretary tossed through a window after she discovers her boss’ dark secret. That boss is Max Shreck, played by Christopher Walken. He’s a minor villain, even if he likes to pretend otherwise. Selina survives the fall after she’s resuscitated by cats (!). Upon returning home, she gulps down a carton of milk. More importantly, she fashions a costume with a shiny black PVC dress and a sewing kit.

To begin with, the black-clad villainess is shown at a distance through her apartment window, and it’s only when she saves a woman from a mugger that we see Catwoman up close. How Selina developed acrobatic abilities with no training is a mystery, but she easily dispatches – and scratches – the criminal, then gives the victim a lecture on feminism.

Michelle Pfeiffer often tops polls of the (many) actresses to play Catwoman in film and TV. Her weird origin gives her character a dangerous edge, and she’s closer to a villain than previous incarnations. This version also has the best double life / romantic subplot with Bruce Wayne, actually wears a cat-eared cowl, and wields the iconic whip. Catwoman doesn’t get top billing, but is the foe people remember most. If only for her stitched, tight-fitting catsuit.

Villainess

Selina Kyle / Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer)

The Penguin sells himself as a hero by rescuing a baby kidnapped by his own henchmen. He blackmails Shreck into helping him gain revenge on Gotham’s wealthy families. While chaos rages on the streets and Batman fights to maintain control, a certain woman in black unleashes her own destruction. And what better target than her former boss’ store?

Catwoman beheads several mannequins with her whip, showing skill that should take years of practice. She then vandalises and loots a display case. The writers remembered Selina is supposed to be a thief, but this is her only robbery. Two bumbling security guards try to stop her, but are quickly disarmed and sent packing. Then it’s time to crash the party with a burst gas pipe, aerosols left in a microwave as a makeshift timer, and a single word to herald the resulting explosion. Meow.

Penguin leaves Batman to handle the newcomer, and the hero manages okay until he strikes Catwoman in the face and she plays the female card. This gives her the opportunity to strike back when the noble Batman lowers his guard, but from that point on he treats Catwoman like any other opponent. After a sexual ploy to get close, she claws the hero’s chest – an attack thwarted by his body armour. Batman throws Catwoman from the roof into a truck of kitty litter. One life down, but she has eight remaining.

Shreck works with the Penguin and devises a scheme to elect him the mayor of Gotham City. This is merely a sideline, and while he happily schmoozes with female assistants, even those fall out of favour when the cat drops in. Seduction is an effective weapon, but Catwoman is hostile to her sleazy host’s sexual advances. This is an uneasy alliance destined to collapse later, but for now the villains have a common enemy.

An emboldened Selina Kyle returns to Shreck’s office and after some… cat and mouse antics, the young woman romances Bruce Wayne. There’s soul-searching and close comfort in Wayne Manor before The Penguin wreaks more havoc. His latest scheme involves luring Batman into a trap and framing him for the murder of a buxom celebrity. Catwoman is the accomplice, and she and Batman have another fight. No chivalry or feigning injury this time, and the hero pulls no punches.

The villainess escapes with the hostage, and thanks to a combination of the Penguin (and his trick umbrellas) and the police, Batman lands on his back. A perfect (or should that be purrfect?) opportunity for sexual assault. The hero doesn’t resist and is somewhat lost for words. Catwoman ruins any chance of reconciliation when she stabs Batman, breaking off a clawed nail on his body armour.

Batman disappears into the night, only to find his Batmobile sabotaged and under the Penguin’s control. After causing a lot of property damage, the hero foils the plot and records the villain’s gloating transmission. As he recovers from Catwoman’s attack in the Batcave, Bruce uploads the audio file during a mayoral campaign speech. With Penguin’s credibility in tatters, he dumps Shreck and launches the final phase of his evil scheme.

Catwoman – who treads the line between anti-heroine and villainess – isn’t pleased that Penguin killed an innocent woman. And he’s not happy that she complains, so he hooks Catwoman to a helicopter umbrella that whisks her into the air. A daring escape – and glass-shattering fall – later, Catwoman emerges unscathed.

Time to dress up as Selina Kyle and romance Bruce Wayne at a ball, but their double lives collide when they repeat dialogue from the earlier roof encounter. That’s when they realise their opposite’s nocturnal identity. No time for debate, because the Penguin’s thugs arrive to kidnap Shreck.

The finale is a disappointing mess, as the deranged villain orders penguins armed with rockets to attack Gotham, only to be foiled by a signal jammer. The Penguin is a better schemer than a fighter, and no umbrella tricks can save him. After a few unimpressive brawls, he falls over in the snow and dies. Shreck and Catwoman get a more interesting climax, as the wild, out-of-control woman desires revenge and an unmasked Bruce attempts to talk her out of it.

The hero appears to get through to Selina before she knocks him down with a claw swipe. The villainess advances on Shreck, shrugs off several gunshots to the chest (more multiple lives nonsense) and dies in an electrical explosion. Apparently, because while Bruce finds Shreck’s body, there’s no sign of Selina. Just before the end credits roll, Catwoman (with a repaired cowl) reappears in silhouette form, but the hinted return never happened.

Honourable Mentions: Catwoman

Batman (1966) – The Catwoman / Kitka (Lee Merriwether)

The 1960s Batman was a campy TV series with Adam West and Burt Ward as the dynamic duo, and a feature-length movie between the first and second seasons. Four principal adversaries – Penguin, Joker, Riddler, and Catwoman – team up to take over the world. The result is as colourful and silly as you would expect.

Julie Newmar – who played Catwoman in the series – was injured before filming began, so Lee Merriwether took on the role. Actually, it’s a dual role because Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson aren’t the only characters with alter egos. When unmasked, Catwoman is Kitka, a Russian journalist as fake as they come. The Penguin puts on a flimsy disguise that Batman sees through, but Kitka’s feminine charms have him completely fooled.

After half an hour of hokum, Catwoman suits up in her black outfit and announces the evil scheme: to abduct the Security Council (think the United Nations). The sole villainess is a conniving femme fatale who poses sexily while the men do the muscle work. Catwoman throws in an evil smirk and mimes claw swipes, but that’s about it.

The big fight at the end has the superimposed comic-style text that this campy production is known for. As the duo fight on Penguin’s submarine, Catwoman gets the drop on the heroes and dunks them in the ocean. No hard physical contact in this era, so she trips and falls. Her mask comes off in the lame defeat, revealing her dual identity to a stunned Batman.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard)

A more serious take, the conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy had Christian Bale as Batman go up against Bane (Tom Hardy). Grounded in reality – as far as caped crusaders go – so the villain is a huge imposing guy in a mask without the venom backpack. Bane is bent on bringing chaos to Gotham’s streets. The twist is he’s supposedly the son of Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson), the antagonist of Batman Begins.

Selina Kyle is a thief closer to the source material, but is never referred to as Catwoman, though several headlines mention a cat burglar at large. This devious woman is introduced as a maid in Wayne Manor who encounters the reclusive hero. Against a retired cripple, she easily escapes with an acrobatic window leap. Besides stealing pearls from a safe, Selina absconds with Bruce’s fingerprints. Her shady employer attempts to betray her, only to find she’s smarter and can easily defeat his goons in combat.

After Bane’s violent campaign convinces Batman to return, we see Selina in a catsuit. Her all-black outfit has cat-ear goggles and razor-sharp heels useful for threatening bad guys. Unlike other movies, Batman recognises Selina through her domino mask, and they defeat an army of thugs with little trouble. Selina even does a stealthy disappearing act when Batman turns around on a roof.

The hero is unwise to trust a criminal, because she rats him out to Bane. Selina can only watch as the brute beats Batman senseless and breaks his back. A paralysed Bruce finds himself in a hellhole prison and learns the only person who ever climbed the well-like entrance to escape is a child. As Bane takes over Gotham City, two prisoners heal Bruce as he hallucinates about Ra’s al Ghul. After several failed attempts, the hero makes the climb and returns home.

Selina Kyle, uncomfortable with the new Gotham, joins Batman on his mission to stop a nuclear bomb. Batman has a flying vehicle after his trademark Batmobile was destroyed in The Dark Knight (2008), and the reluctant heroine gets to ride the Batcycle. She’s a natural at the hero thing and takes out armoured vehicles. Selina even finishes Bane with the cycle’s rocket launcher. Overkill, maybe, but it needed something powerful to take down this foe.

In the climax, it’s revealed that Bane is not the true mastermind. That would be Talia, the daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, who’s been posing as a civilian named Miranda Tate. She gained Bruce’s trust, and they even had a brief romantic fling. But anyone familiar with the comics knows about the female heir, and Miranda drops several hints. The surprise works because of the late reveal, but by the time Talia stabs Batman in the back, there’s only twenty minutes to go.

For a trained assassin who escaped a hellish prison as a young girl, Talia’s contribution post-reveal is very limited. She issues kill orders and climbs into a moving truck, but it only takes a few missiles to crash her vehicle. That’s it for any action. The dying Talia gloats Batman will never disarm her bomb in time, but a female assassin without a fight scene is a waste of potential.

The Batman (2022) – Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz)

Ten years since the previous incarnation, it’s time for another reboot. Robert Pattinson is a raw and violent vigilante, and Gotham is so dark that even the Burton and Nolan movies seem bright. There’s less focus on Bruce Wayne and more on detective work, with Batman chasing a psycho who wants to bring chaos to the streets. The Riddler is a masked villain reminiscent of the Zodiac Killer, leaving cryptic messages for the police.

Selina Kyle – not referred to as Catwoman – is a prototype who wears a leather outfit and a makeshift balaclava. The motorcyclist anti-heroine has a mission of her own, and she’s adept at thievery, disguise, and beating up criminal scum. Her acrobatic kickboxing skills are less effective against body armour, and Batman defeats her with ease. After that, it’s flirty romance and the occasional partnership.

Selina is a subplot in an overlong, three-hour movie. Long fingernails are a natural weapon dangerous enough to claw the face of a mob boss. A length of chain stands in for a whip during a nighttime assault, and her mask already has distinctive cat ears. Overall, a faithful version of the comic character. Zoë Kravitz will apparently return for the sequel, so let’s hope for an iconic outfit and more involvement.