Halle Berry must be feeling like the cat that's choked on the curdled cream after agreeing to star in this daft comic book yarn.

Directed in a manner that invites you to bellow "keep that bloody camera still" she never appears comfortable as the feline enforcer.

When we first meet her she's meek graphics designer Patience Philips, a drone for global cosmetics company Hedare Beauty.

However, when she overhears a conversation about how their new anti-aging product has disastrous side effects, she's bumped off.

Well, no, she's not actually bumped off. She's flushed out of the company's sewage system into a river where she lies on a mudbank until revived by the breath of some local moggies.

Coming to, she finds she's gifted with strength (she can kick doors down), agility (she can hop on and off work surfaces at will) and ultra-keen senses (she can whiff sushi at fifty paces).

To cut a long story short...she's now Catwoman and the claws are out for the no-marks that tried to do for her.

Director Pitof, who made his name as a visual effects supervisor on the likes of Alien: Resurrection, makes a dog's dinner out of this cat's tale.

Instead of raising hackles, Berry raises unintended titters as she sashays around, rubbing catnip on her face and springing all over furniture.

The heavy S&M overtones of her strappy leather outfit and bull whip may have teenage boys coming over all unneccesary but they pack all the latent fury of a tabby lying in the sun.

French actor Lambert Wilson is bizarrely cast as a British villain (but has the presence of a slab of brie) while Sharon Stone thinks she's being camp and ironic as his icy wife. She's not.

It all amounts to a patchy and unsatisfying whole - especially coming in the wake of the all-conquering Spiderman 2.

Furr-gettable.

Tim Evans