I love the animated series version of Selina. Adrienne Barbeau added so much personality and seductiveness with her sultry voice, and I always loved the way she was drawn outside of the costume. The blond hair, the big green eyes, the curves; I know it's just a cartoon, but damn she was gorgeous! However, I wasn't crazy about the changes to her for
TNBA, in terms of her design. In fact, I didn't really like most of the design changes they did for that show. All of the female characters suffered the worst, going from looking like real women in
BTAS to skinny little pixie sticks in
TNBA.
After lots of rumors and denials, I was excited to eventually learn Selina would be in
The Dark Knight Rises. Lookswise, I thought Anne Hathaway was great. The costume could have been a little better, but it wasn't bad, and there's no denying she looked incredible in it. I love her little cat-like strides in a few parts, and of course, straddling that Batpod through the streets of Gotham wasn't bad either. Hehe! I also liked the touch with her mask forming cat ears when pushed up onto her head. But, actingwise, I thought she gave only a mediocre performance, and didn't have much chemistry with Christian Bale. I also thought she was rather underwritten as well, too.
Michelle Pfeiffer remains my favorite live-action Catwoman. As mentioned above, I enjoyed her character arc, she had great chemistry with Michael Keaton (their dance scene is so much better than the one with Bale and Hathaway), and I thought she gave a really good performance. It's a long read, but
here is a great article I found showing how the
Batman Returns Selina relates to the source material.
She clearly made an impact as Catwoman, especially with us guys who were just impressionable young teenagers back in 1992. I think it goes without saying that for a whole generation, Michelle Pfeiffer
is Catwoman.