Puss In Boots (2011)

Witty kitty comedy from the makers of Shrek, about an outlaw cat (voiced by Antonio Banderas) who must embark on an epic adventure in order to clear his name. A spin-off from the mega popular ogre franchise, following one of the secondary characters Puss, a feisty feline-cum-fencer, who lives in a fairy-tale world similar to Shrek, but with a distinctively Spanish influence. Puss is given a back story involving him arriving at an orphanage in a remote village, where he befriends Humpty Dumpty, and the two create a life goal of finding magic beans and climbing the magic beanstalk to find the Golden Goose and be rich. Plenty of twists and turns follow, with enigmatic foes showing themselves. A patchwork of children’s stories, Puss blends various aspects of characters and themes from a range of tales like Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack and Jill, and others, but with the lovable Dreamworks charm which sees these elements mutate into far more modern and subversive versions. The plot becomes your typical children’s animation fantasy, with short bursts of story followed by action sequences and travelling to new locations, but this is not to say it is predictable or boring. The makers have cram-filled the film with amazing cinematography, hilarious dialogue, slapstick comedy, and numerous references to Puss being a cat (such as licking his milk in a rough bandit bar, or chasing the light from a torch on the floor). Where Puss fails to fill Shrek’s boots is the adult jokes. The ogre films managed to bridge the gap between kid and grown-up so successfully with plenty of in-jokes that would sail over the little one’s heads, whilst making adults chuckle, whilst Puss In Boots seems to be aimed at a younger audience, and as such fills a little emptier. Overall though, a worthwhile watch with plenty of laughs and rising tension. The imagination put into this movie is commendable, and the film stands alone from the Shrek franchise as a very decent kids film. It is just not…forgive me…purr-fect.