Puss in Boots, review
Robbie Collin finds that most of the jokes in Puss in Boots fit into
two categories: “Ha ha, he’s Spanish” and “Ha ha, he’s a cat”.
U cert, 90 min. Dir Chris Miller Starring Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek,
Zach Galifianakis
The Shrek series began as a satire on Hollywood’s appropriation of fairy-tale
imagery, so it’s ironic that it went on to become a latter-day Goose That
Laid the Golden Eggs, yielding an average of £471 million per film.
Now that particular goose has been cooked, Puss in Boots is DreamWorks
Animation’s attempt to spin off an equally lucrative replacement – although,
disappointingly, it has more in common with the drab, smug third and fourth
Shrek films than with the spikily enjoyable first two.
Set before Puss meets Shrek – not that it seems to make any meaningful
difference – this film follows the feline swashbuckler (voiced by Antonio
Banderas) as he hunts for a pouch of magic beans, with help from a
standard-issue Girl Power sidekick, Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek), and his
childhood friend Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis). These beans are
currently in the possession of Jack and Jill, who for reasons not
immediately apparent are a pair of fat, ugly, middle-aged outlaws.
Most of the jokes in Puss in Boots fit into two categories: “Ha ha, he’s
Spanish” and “Ha ha, he’s a cat”. Mildly tedious cat humour is an internet
staple and the film pitches at exactly that level: it’s all too easy to
picture the film’s six writers in a West Hollywood branch of Starbucks,
slouched round a MacBook and cackling at YouTube. Many of the gags,
including a studenty crack about “medicinal catnip”, are aimed straight over
young viewers’ heads.
By Robbie Collin
By Robbie Collin
