Feline power characterizes this week’s slate of home video releases as Warner Bros. releases Catwoman and Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars a new direct-to-video feature starring everybody’s favorite cat and mouse duo.
Directed by French helmer Pitof (vfx director of Alien: Resurrection, The City of Lost Children) Catwoman stars Oscar winner Berry (Monster’s Ball, X-Men, X2: X-Men United) as Patience Phillips, a timid graphic artist who discovers a dark secret about the major cosmetics company she works for. Entangled in a corporate conspiracy, Patience is transformed into an avenging angel with the speed, agility and keen senses of a cat. Benjamin Bratt (Miss Congeniality) co-stars as the cop assigned to investigate a rash of crimes believed to be linked to the feline femme fatal, while Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct) plays her adversary.
The Batman spin-off features 850 visual effects shots including scenes involving 100% virtual environments with a completely digital Catwoman and CG cats. ESC handled the lion’s share of the work, with Tippett Studio, Matte World, Circle F, Meteor, Frantic, Pac Title and The Farm West all contributing to the project.
Catwoman arrives on disc with a host of special features, including an alternate ending, five additional scenes, a featurette profiling the evolution of Catwoman through the years and a behind-the-scenes tour with cast and creators. The DVD caries a suggested retail price of $27.95.
Tom and Jerry continue their perpetual chase into outer space in their new toon feature, Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars. The two mistakenly stow away on the first manned mission to the red planet and discover that Martians do exist. Putting their differences aside for a while, they join forces with a young Martian girl to battle asteroid fields, the Martian invasion of Earth and a gigantic alien robot bent on destroying anything in its path. Emmy Award-winning actor Brad Garrett from TV’s Everybody Loves Raymond lends his voice to the movie.
DVD extras include a making-of documentary, a step-by-step look at the animation process and an original National Geographic featurette on space travel. The disc lists for $19.98.
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