Rent Catwoman: Hunted (2022)

Catwoman: Hunted review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Catwoman always felt like the sexier and more playful anti-hero of the DC gallery of villains. Sure, Harley Quinn has gone through quite the makeover and The Joker has a certain style to his chaotic and nihilistic nature, but how can you resist a cat-themed thief? She has always been clever, always been sexy, and always had an allure to her charm. Much of that comes across in Catwoman: Hunted but sadly not much of a story to suit her style.

There’s a clear anime influence to this series of heists and fights and it suits the titular femme fatale like a glove. Presented with a lavish anime design and a classy tone of smooth jazz, Selina “Catwoman” Kyle gets this party off with a bang. She infiltrates a costume party for the criminal underground group Leviathan. It is there where she not only swipes a precious treasure but fights an entire ballroom of guards and elites dressed up like DC Comics heroes and villains. There are some decent quips, great energy, and a thrilling car chase that follows.

Cool, but now what? Well, Catwoman is captured by Interpol and is forced to take on a mission to apprehend more bad guys. Working alongside the stern Batwoman, she engages in both thievery and butt-kickery as she encounters all manner of villains. If you wanted to see Catwoman take on a slew of bad guys, then this might be the movie for you. Within the second act, she takes down the members of Leviathan that include Black Mask, Cheshire, Nosferata, Tobias Whale, Doctor Tzin-Tzin, Mister Yakuza, La Dama, and Moxie Mannheim. She finishes the job but then the third act comes where she has to fight the League of Assassins which includes ninjas, Solomon Grundy, and Cheetah.

It’s disheartening that the narrative grows tiresome by transforming from a heist operation to a skirmish of Catwoman and Batwoman versus various villains. To the film’s credit, the animation looks great for adopting an anime style with the aid of OLM Team Inoue and director Shinsuke Terasawa. The fight between Catwoman and Cheetah is a particular highlight. That being said, there’s this very off-key dubbing to how the English voice actors don’t match the mouth movements of the characters. I find this fascinating as most anime tends to favor mouth flaps that are easy to dub with but not this anime film for some reason. Did the filmmakers really want to have a kung-fu dubbing look to such a picture?

The other problem is that there isn’t much sexual tension between Catwoman and Batwoman that isn’t rushed. Sure, it’s sexy to have these two characters be incredibly attracted to one another, given Batwoman’s lesbian leanings and Catwoman’s bisexual fun. Yet it rarely feels like that love is tense. The scene where Catwoman manages to arouse Batwoman with a bath is steamy but also comes off a bit forced with how easily Batwoman melts like butter. Not only does Batwoman blush up a storm at being approached for physical intimacy but lets Catwoman get handsy pretty fast, leading to an obvious deception.

Despite some erotic leanings of such a picture, Catwoman: Hunted is a bit of a mess. It starts as a heist film and ends up about as stock as every other DC Comics animated movie, more concerned with including characters than doing anything all that appealing with them. But, hey, if you ever wanted to see Catwoman and Batwoman nearly kiss, this film will get you closer to the desire of having more queer characters in DC Comics movies having more overtly sexual relationships.