Catwoman Hunted: Girl on Girl Action

I am a big fan of DC’s animated universe.  I feel like they continually put out high quality movies with great voice talent and awesome stories with a good mixture of intrigue and adventure.  The newest addition strays from the path a bit, and the resulting product left me a little less impressed.

Catwoman: Hunted is a buddy movie teaming Catwoman and Batwoman together.  When Selina Kyle’s (Elizabeth Gillies) attempt to steal a priceless jewel from the criminal organization Leviathan is foiled by Batwoman (Stephanie Beatriz) and Interpol, she becomes the target of Leviathan’s leader, Cheetah (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) and the rest of the groups members.  Interpol uses this to their advantage, planning on catching and dismantling the whole of Leviathan.  The resulting movie is a fun romp with witty dialogue between the two main characters.

As mentioned above, the overall look of the film diverges from the norm.  The movie takes a chance on changing the animation style used in the previous movies and goes for a more anime look, which for the most part works for the story, but some of the characters didn’t match their voices.  Batwoman, in particular, when unmasked, seemed a bit too young and innocent looking, and portrayed her as a slave to her sexuality. Stephanie Beatriz’s deep rich voice fit well as Batwoman, but just didn’t match her alter ego, Kate Kane.  The look of Cheetah seemed a bit too big and muscular, losing the sleek, cat-like qualities and opted for a more monstrous image.

As for the cast, I don’t particularly care for Elizabeth Gillies (Fallon Carrington on Dynasty), but she did an adequate job with voicing Catwoman. She had good comic timing and some nice intonation.  The rest of the voice cast was stellar with Keith David (Goliath from the animated Gargoyles) doing a wonderful job as Tibias Wale and Jonathan Banks as Black Mask

The storyline was enjoyable and flowed well with a lot of action, opting for more fight scenes and car chases then actual plot exposition.  The script is more fun and lighthearted than some of the other films in the series, and since this seems to exist in the Young Justice animated series universe it makes sense. There is a lot of witty banter and amped up the sexual tension between Selina Kyle and Kate Kane portraying Catwoman as a tease who knows how to “work her audience” to get what she wants.  In the end, we are left wondering who was using who?