The Catwoman Detail That Still Has The Batman Fans Scratching Their Heads
"The Batman" is already becoming one of the most talked about films of the year. Some critics are even comparing it to "The Dark Knight" featuring Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne and the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, a movie that set the standard for many superhero features to come (via Houston Chronicle).
Robert Pattinson gives audiences a real insight into a young Bruce Wayne's psyche during his second year as the Caped Crusader in Gotham City. "The Batman" quickly establishes the partnership between Jeffrey Wright's James Gordon and Batman as well, as the pair work throughout the entire film to catch The Riddler (Paul Dano), who seems to be killing Gotham City officials one by one.
During Bruce's investigation after confronting Oswald "Oz" Cobblepot (Colin Farrell) in the Iceberg Lounge, he meets another iconic DC Comics character for the very first time — Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz). After using body language to tell Bruce that she knows some information about what he's after, he investigates Selena's activities at her apartment. Bruce then speaks to Selina for the first time after stopping her from robbing a crime scene, with the pair returning to Selina's home. They agree to work together and have a nice arc throughout the movie that lays the foundation for their famous and complicated on-and-off romance.
Although Selena leaves for Blüdhaven at the end of the film, there's one Catwoman detail that has left fans scratching their heads.
Selena only had one cat with her before leaving at the end of The Batman
During "The Batman," just before Bruce Wayne is able to receive Selina Kyle's help due to her position at the Iceberg Lounge, the two find Selina's apartment broken into and her friend Annika (Hana Hrzic) missing. After a tense conversation, Bruce notes that Selina has a lot of cats given the three or four that are surrounding his boots — to which Selina says that she has "a thing about strays."
This comment reveals a lot about her later in the movie, as we discover that Selina likely feels like a stray given that her father Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) has been absent, and her mother was killed when she was young. Bruce discovers that they're the same in that regard — in being orphans. It also seems obvious that given this, Selina must be pretty attached to her feline friends in her apartment. Although, some fans on Reddit have noticed a confusing moment relating to her cats at the end of "The Batman."
Just before Selena leaves for Blüdhaven after talking with Bruce, audiences are only able to see one cat around her motorcycle that she takes with her, even though earlier she had multiple. Redditor u/jagfanjosh3252 initiated the conversation, asking if Selena only picked her favorite cat to come with her even though her love of strays would seem to indicate that she would take them all with. So, why didn't Selina make room for all of her cats?
Where did the rest of the cats go?
Although the other cats from Selina Kyle's apartment don't seem to be with her as she heads out for Blüdhaven, many fans think that there are specific reasons we don't see them. User u/PsychologicalSweet2 speculated that the majority of the cats in her apartment were not truly her pets. "I took it that a lot of cats just come in to her apartment to live but that cat was the only one that was actually hers," they explained.
Other fans seconded this, and suggested that aside from a continuity error, the rest of the cats could simply be strays that Selina took care of while she could. Another obvious reason for this could be that Selina simply did not have physical room on her motorcycle to take every single cat with her, hence the singular cat that she seemed to put in the carrier on the back of her bike.
Either way, focusing on Selina's cats proved to be more than just a blatant call to her alter-ego as Catwoman and an opportunity for Batman to show his dry and limited sense of humor. It foreshadows who Selina truly feels that she is given her upbringing, and explains a lot about the way she moves and fights throughout the film's entirety. If we see Selina again in a possible sequel to "The Batman," it's likely that she will have even embraced this cat persona even more — maybe even with some notable suit upgrades. We'll keep you posted.