Catwoman Is Fully Clothed, Has Practical Ears

Alright, this is a few days late I know, but it's been a somewhat exhausting week for no particular reason.  As averse as I am to run grainy set photos, I found the revelation below to be pretty damn cool.

Here's the long ago revealed first photo of Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman astride the Batpod.

Crazy goggles, no?  Now check out the below shot of her in full costume.

Get it?  When she's not using the goggles, she flips them up onto her head and they look like cat ears!  No crazy nine lives curse, no cat tail, no fingertip claws...honestly, I dig it.  It actually reminds me of the various Catwomen who faced off against Adam West and Burt Ward.  Okay yeah, those heels are more than a little impractical, but I'm sure Nolan won't be fixating the camera on her stilettos, even they're even on-camera at all.  (I'm wondering if they're essentially just lifts to make her taller around her castmates, but then again audiences don't really seem to be bothered by woman running and fighting in heels.)

This costume feels like it fits effortlessly into the already established Nolan Bat-verse.  She doesn't have crazy cat powers, she's not dressed in feline form, she's just (presumably) a cat burglar who's added a touch of wordplay to her gear.  I'd love to see her as a female counterweight to Batman, someone who's just as badass but whose moral compass is a tad askew.

Also, Anne Hathaway in skintight black leather is not an unpleasing sight.

First Image Of Selina Kyle Underwhelms

Am I crazy, or is Warner Brothers totally dropping the ball here?

Other than that great one sheet image, it feels like the WB marketing team is trying to dramatically lower the bar for expectations here.  In a way that's not entirely surprising, seeing as The Dark Knight is the third highest grossing domestic film of all time.  But on the other hand, releasing mediocre images of your new characters really just leaves a sour taste in my mouth for a movie that I'm absolutely going to see anyway.  My expectations are already sky high based solely on the quality of the previous films, and since the whole band is back together again, I have no reason not to expect that same level of greatness.  (Granted the same could be said of Spider-Man 3 and we all know how that turned out.)  I don't want to walk into Dark Knight Rises with a feeling of skepticism, but WB doesn't seem to care what I want.

Anyway, here we've got the first official image of Selina Kyle, complete with crazy goggles and what I can only assume is a soon-to-be-stolen Batpod.  (Click to embiggen.)  It's important to note that Nolan and co have only ever referred to Hathaway's character as Selina Kyle and I've yet to see the word Catwoman appear in any Nolan interview or press release.  (Anne Hathaway, however, has repeatedly said, "I'm playing Catwoman.")  So I guess they're trying something different with Kyle, de-emphasizing the whole "I think I'm part feline" psychosis that is usually associated with the character and focusing instead on Kyle as a cat burglar.  To be honest, that actually fits a little better in the Gotham they've created, but I would think that even a burglar would want to hide her features a little better than just a pair of BluBlockers.  I feel like this is not the complete version of Kyle's Cat-wardrobe, but that still begs the question, "Why make this your first reveal of the character?"

Fortunately I have more faith in Nolan's filmmaking skills than in Warner Brothers' marketing skills.