JUDGING by Catwoman's scathing reviews from the American critics, you could be forgiven for thinking that this action adventure, inspired by the DC Comics character of the same name, is the worst blockbuster of the year.

In fact, King Arthur still proudly clings on to that crown. But there's no escaping the fact that this is a bad film - Catwoman stinks like a tray of mouldering kitty litter.

However, the screenplay does occasionally acknowledge its pantomime campness and teenage boys will doubtless be purr-fectly happy to watch Oscar winner Halle Berry cavort around in an S&M-like PVC body suit.

Patience Phillips (Berry) is a talented if somewhat clumsy advertising designer, who creates promotional masterpieces for the cosmetics firm Hedare Beauty, run by Gallic hot-head George (Lambert Wilson) and his supermodel wife Laurel (Sharon Stone).

The company is preparing for the worldwide launch of its new wunderproduct, Beauline - an anti-ageing cream which boldly claims to offer women eternal youth.

Beauline sounds too good to be true - and indeed it is.

During a late-night visit to the office to drop off the latest poster designs, Patience overhears a conversation between Hedare scientists warning of the cream's nasty side effects - if the customer stops using Beauline, the ingredients cause shocking inflammation and potential scarring.

Patience is murdered to protect Beauline's dark secret and her body washes up on shore close to the Hedare laboratory where she is magically brought back to life by a cat called Midnight, who imbues the young woman with amazing feline abilities.

She develops amazing strength, agility and ultra-keen senses, not to mention dangerously blurred morals.

By day, Patience continues her romance with her good guy cop Tom Lone (Benjamin Bratt), who has dedicated his life to putting the bad guys behind bars.

By night, she dons her mask and skin-tight PVC bodysuit to rid the world of evil as the whip-cracking avenger Catwoman, a feline fatale who can't wait toget her claws into George and Laurel.

Catwoman is a mess.

Performances are flat and lifeless, the dialogue in unintentionally hilarious and the special effects are atrocious.

The computer-generated Catwoman, who leaps across rooftops bears little resemblance to the flesh and blood incarnation, ruining every action set-piece.

Berry spends the second half of the film channelling the memory of Batman-era Eartha Kitt, including gratuitous rolling of the r's in the word 'perfect'.

Many of the fight sequences reduce her to posing on all fours with her bottom thrust into the air, or slinking about the screen with an exaggerated hip movement that verges on the laughable.

Bratt is simply buff eye-candy and Wilson purses his lips tensely, as all villains surely do.

Stone, in her big-screen comeback, at least has the good grace to play her deranged harpy with a modicum of camp.

She completely out-vamps Berry and delivers her second-hand one-liners and insults with something approaching glee.

She is also magnificent in the ludicrous final showdown, battling against Catwoman while clad in heels and designer togs.

RATING: 4/10