Puss in Boots — Review1

“Puss in Boots” mixes it all up, how it mixes is refresh­ing. Even more than in the “Shrek” movies, from which this likely can­di­date for a new ani­mated fran­chise is spun off, it is a cheer­fully chaotic jum­ble of fairy tale and nurs­ery rhyme char­ac­ters para­chuted into a Spanish sto­ry­book set­ting. It also looks ter­rific: brighter, with a lot more visual piz­zazz than the “Shrek” films. Even when the story loses its thread, the movie rewards your eye.

Now hon­estly, when I last saw the Shrek movies, it was not Shrek that caught my eye, it was Puss in Boots. Something about the way the cat stole the show and I thought to myself, “This would make a good spin off”. Well, I was RIGHT! So Hollywood, where’s my money

The tale, revolv­ing around Puss, imag­ines this vain, spoiled, swash­buck­ler (voiced by Antonio “sexy like me” Banderas) with delu­sions of grandeur, col­lid­ing with Humpty Dumpty, the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, Jack and Jill, and Mother Goose her­self (I am just wait­ing for the day that they include Barney the dinosaur as a pimp and then we got our­selves a sequel).

Puss is given a ten­ta­tive roman­tic inter­est in the feisty and seduc­tive Kitty Softpaws (Salma “I wish she was my girl­friend” Hayek), who first appears in dis­guise and even­tu­ally becomes his side­kick and part­ner in crime. Kitty’s tragedy is that she has been declawed, but the movie makes lit­tle of it. Despite some perky quasi-flamenco dance num­bers, their team­work never quite soars into Astaire-Rogers heaven. (sad)

Puss has his charms,especially with those cuetsy eyes, but he is not as mem­o­rable a char­ac­ter as Shrek or Shrek’s mouthy side­kick, Donkey, because most of his charm is sup­pose to be sexy but since this is a kid’s show, you have a prob­lem here.

Consequently the story, which involves a quest for magic beans and golden eggs, feels impro­vised and dif­fuse like “why do they need it and why it took so long to get it done?”. The most sharply drawn char­ac­ter, Humpty Dumpty (voiced by Zach Galifianakis), Puss’s erst­while best friend turned enemy, is also the most com­plex. Jealous and treach­er­ous, but with a seed of good, he is an ani­mated Rorschach test whose remark­ably expres­sive fea­tures reg­is­ter more shades of ambi­gu­ity than I can recall encoun­ter­ing in a Hollywood ani­mated char­ac­ter. There are many, many egg jokes like “I always knew that you were a good egg inside” –duh?

Puss and Humpty Dumpty first meet at an orphan­age, where they hatch a dream of acquir­ing magic beans to grow a beanstalk that they intend to climb into the clouds to steal the Goose That Lays Golden Eggs. But the two are sep­a­rated before they can real­ize their plan, and Puss becomes an out­law. When they meet again, Humpty Dumpty is fum­ing that Puss betrayed him, but they reteam any­way for an adven­ture that involves some spec­tac­u­lar midair derring-do.

Good start, but hard to sus­tain it through. how­ever the gags are furi­ous and fast like the cat in the cor­ner that says “OOOOOOOH” when­ever a secret is reveal is price­less. However, the show is too com­plex and has too many changes of heart to be a smooth, coher­ent ride. Puss isn’t as clear-cut a per­son­al­ity as he was in the “Shrek” movies. The moral of the story — some­thing about revenge and for­give­ness — sim­ply has lit­tle res­o­nance. In Singaporean terms, its too CHEEM for kids.

Still I laughed why way silly until I real­ized I was the loud­est in the cin­ema. Despite its short­com­ings, the show is a must see for 80 mins of sheer entertainment.

I can’t wait for Puss in Boots 2, “Pimp City”. Now that’s a sequel.

4 stars of 5 stars (see it!)