Catwoman: Hunted popped up in my HBO Max recommendations today, and I decided to give it a try as a break from the usual lineup of featured heroes from the DC Comics stable. This 78-minute animated movie focuses on Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman (voiced by Elizabeth Gillies), who steals a cat-themed emerald from a gathering of the global crime syndicate Leviathan.

Leviathan's council of crooks includes several names I'm not familiar with, such as Mr. Yakuza, Dr. Tzin-Tzin, Boss Moxie and La Dama, all of whom have special abilities and powers. Barbara Minerva, aka Cheetah (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), is its ostensible head, and Gotham villain Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask (Jonathan Banks), is buying his way into the cadre.

They're understandably peeved when Catwoman steps in, and she's less than thrilled when her heist is interrupted by Batwoman (Stephanie Beatriz), who is working with Interpol agents Julia Pennyworth (Lauren Cohan) and King Faraday (Jonathan Frakes) to take down Leviathan. They want Catwoman's help, and use the many warrants against her as leverage to coerce her assistance.

Conflicts ensue, including a couple of big-boss fights. That's pretty much it for the plot.

The anime style of animation, while not my usual cup of tea, is nicely done and is a pleasant change from DC's usual cartoon styles. Unfortunately, the animators couldn't (or didn't try to) make lips move with the dialogue; it almost looks like voice actors are overdubbing a Japanese language movie, which I suppose might have been a stylistic choice.

The sexual tension between Catwoman and Batwoman is ham-fisted and overplayed; they would never show Batman so easily distracted by flirtation, and it's a disservice to do it to Batwoman. And yeah, I get it, Catwoman is a sensual character, and the animators had a lot of fun drawing as much of her boobs as they could get away with in a PG-13 feature, but the sexual banter and revealing scenes feel unnecessary -- and they're probably only there to get teenage viewers excited.

The movie also suffers from too many long pauses in the action, and Yutaka Yamada's jazzy soundtrack, while nice in the background in some scenes, is jarring and intrusive in others.

The feature gives us a woefully incompetent League of Assassins. The first two heavy hitters from the League -- Cheshire (Kelly Hu) and Nosferata (Zehra Fazal) -- are surprisingly easily bested, and the multitude that follows operates on a one-hit-equals-unconsciousness principle; it feels more like a video game than a movie, but even so it's hard to believe that two people could beat 50 highly trained ninjas in a matter of minutes.

Solomon Grundy is an incongruous and somewhat ridiculous addition to the fight, and his constant repetition of the nursery rhyme is annoying ... particularly because he always forgets Thursday and Friday. Dude, learn your poem.

All in all, Catwoman: Hunted is a somewhat enjoyable, inoffensive addition to the DC collection of short animated movies. It doesn't break new ground, it doesn't add anything terribly exciting to the mix and it doesn't feel like it has very high stakes, but it's an OK way to pass the time while folding laundry!