Puss in Boots (2011)
Puss in Boots (2011) – So I liked Shrek a lot. Then Shrek 2 ended up being a pretty great sequel. Then the franchise headed south pretty fast with two mediocre-to-lousy sequels. Now they’re going the spin-off prequel route with one of the most popular supporting characters: Puss in Boots. I’ll never understand what mad stroke of genius it was to make Puss in Boots a swashbuckling Spaniard in Shrek 2, but my God did it work well. Antonio Banderas isn’t the first name you think of for comedy but the dude sold it. If you were going to spin off any of the Shrek supporting characters, this is certainly the one that makes the most sense. It’s not exactly a fresh start but shedding the baggage of the Shrek films, I could see potential in this.
It starts with outlaw Puss in Boots (still Banderas) rolling into an apparently-Mexican town looking for a score. He hears a tale about magic beans possessed by notoriously criminals Jack and Jill (Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris, kind of going for a Raising Arizona thing). His heist is complicated by the intrusion of cat burglar (oh the puns…) Kitty Softpaws (Banderas’ Desperado co-star Salma Hayek, who apparently is back to using her maiden name after a brief stint as Salma Pinault) and his old friend-turned-enemy-turned-sidekick-searching-for-redemption (or is he?) Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis). There is a LOT of backstory given about the relationship between Puss and Humpty.
Puss in Boots is mildly diverting fare but a lot of the jokes wear thin fairly quickly, which is not good for a movie aimed at making you laugh. The motional story arc of the film never really hits home either, as characters betray each other (mostly for plot convenience) and redeem themselves (for the same reason). Oddly enough, Guillermo del Toro was a producer and creative consultant for this film, which surprised me as the movie contained no creatures of unspeakable horror (as del Toro’s films are wont to do). Last year DreamWorks Animation released How to Train Your Dragon, a movie which showed that they could produce great movies on par with Pixar (see also: Antz). Puss in Boots does not demonstrate that potential. It’s amusing enough and if you have kids there’s no reason not to take them to see it, but I was hoping for (if not necessarily expecting) more.
Persistence of Vision 
The character may be here to save the day, but the movie’s only here to pass the time and it does that just fine. Nice review. Check out my site when you get the chance.