"Puss In Boots"
2011
PG
Produced by: Latifa Ouaou, Joe M. Aguilar
Directed by: Chris Miller
Written by: Charles Perrault
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis
Dreamworks Animation


3.64/5 Stars
Consensus:Cute and funny, but not life changing, Puss In Boots is a great family friendly movie with an appealing plot. Worth the watch, but maybe not to own. The characters are overall endearing and the film well directed, just not mind boggling. Good, not spectacular or amazing.


Plot: Puss In Boots  is intended to be a predecessor to the film Shrek 2(2004) and follows the early endeavors of the title character, "Puss In Boots"(Antonio Banderas), who is a wanted outlaw in mythical Spain. Upon hearing about a recovered set of magic beans, Puss sets out to recover said beans and thus capitalize on the treasure stored in the giant's castle at the end of the bean stock. Before he can do this he is interfered with by fellow cat burglar "Kitty Softpaws"(Salma Hayek) and former best friend/criminal mastermind "Humpty Alexander Dumpty"(Zach Galifiankis).

Directing: Chris Miller does a decent job at this and has the cute cynical aura the first 2 Shrek films had down well. Albeit low brow at times, the humor is overall very witty and refers often and funnily to cat mannerisms and familiar sterotypes built on in the previous Shrek films. The obvious aim of the film is towards children so some of the less witty/silly physical humor is geared towards them, although it does not go unappreciated for what it is. Chris Miller competently directs and does well for his genre. ****

Acting: Its difficult for me to give a decent review on voice acting in animated films. That said, and just going off what I heard, I felt like Humpty Dumpty was really annoying the entire film. I don't Galifianakis did a great job and just seemed whiny the entire film. Now whether or not that was intentional is very debatable, it very well could be, but the voice acting just didn't flip my cookies. Banderas was appealing in his role, Hayek seemed bored in hers and Billy Bob Thorton(Jack) and Amy Sedaris(Jill) were fantastic in their roles! The rough redneck rendition of an outlaw Jack and Jill was extremely well casted, and in very good humor. ***1/2

Editing:They had a lot of multiple pane shots on the same screen, like a comic book or split screening. Usually I'm not a big fan of this but overall it worked good in the film, especially to build momentum within the plot, and as an element for humor. ****

Art Direction: The film is supposed to be set in Spain, in San Ricardo. Now I've never been to Spain so I can't tell you much about the landscaping, but it looked a heck of a lot more like Mexico or Central America. It would have been a lot better, if set in the American Southwest, but then you wouldn't have all the European fairytale characters running around. Catch 22. So take a few Joshua Trees out with your imagination and don't think about it too much and you'll be just fine, the fairy tale world still feels the same as did Shrek's which had similar elements, i.e. Far Far Away modeled after a Hollywood/West LA area etc. So on the one hand I'm impressed by the consistency of the fairy tale world, the cute tie ins to western action/adventure and the nice blend between European cities and cat bars and deep west deserts and high speed chases, a part of me also disapproves. I suppose its a small detail to fidget about too much, and its still a very cute and consistent film, but the fact remains, so I have to mark this one down a bit for lack of research. ***1/2

Cinematography: This is also an unusual category when it comes to animated film since the camera work is very different and is... computer generated. That said, the shots were smartly and artistically composed, easy to look at, and had several cool shots within the film. ****

Screenplay: I hate hate hated the cat dance fight scene. It was obnoxious and in poor taste. Random, irrelevant, silly, and unappealing. That was the most annoying part. The best part was all the subtle inclusions of cat behavior that any pet owner could relate to. The cute references and Spanglish blends were also in extremely good taste. After our main characters are transported above the clouds via magic bean stock they have helium voices, also very funny and logical. Its just that darn dance scene that was so obnoxious that turns me off to the screen play, like seriously, who sat around and was like "oh I know what would be silly that all the little kiddies will like! A very silly dance off between Puss and Kitty Softpaws!! Haha! Then we can add some obvious romantic tension to the limited character development and make people everywhere roll their eyes in dismay!" It didn't work in Spider-man 3(2007) and it doesn't work here. Unless you're part of the Step Up(2006) franchise in which your entire film is dependent on dance offs, please, avoid them and don't put them into your films. It doesn't work. It gets balanced out by the other cute tid-bits but, seriously folks, we never needed to see dancing cats. Ever. Even if there is an earthquake or a fire or a lightening storm.***

CGI/Special Effects: Again following suit of the Shrek franchise we see very comendable animation coming from Dreamworks studios. It looks fresh and cute, just like the other films, but won't take your breath away quite yet. There is at times a bland or mass produced air to it, as if someone just hit copy & paste thoughtlessly in the background and for CGI extras, but its still good looking. ***1/2