Puss in Boots 2011 - Review by Mail Online

Puss In Boots (U)

Verdict: Far from purrfect

Rating:

This is a 3D spin-off of the Shrek films and has as its hero that legendary swordsman Puss in Boots, seductively voiced by Antonio Banderas.

It is also an origins story, explaining who the ferocious feline was, pre-Shrek.

Impeded and aided by romantic interest Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek, phoning in her performance) and a bad egg, in the form of his childhood friend Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifiniakis, underpowered), Puss goes on a quest to steal magic beans from a pair of thugs called Jack and Jill (a wasted Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris). 

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Let's dance: Puss and Kitty, voiced by Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek) in the DreamWorks Animation Puss In Boots

With these beans, Puss hopes to grow a magic beanstalk, climb up it and steal the legendary goose that lays the golden eggs.

But up in the clouds, he encounters not the giant from Jack And The Beanstalk but something even more terrifying: Mother Goose.

Though Puss was an entertaining subsidiary character in Shrek 2, he fails to convince as a leading character.

He’s vocally monotonous, and lacks the self-loathing complexity of Shrek and the naive charm of Donkey.

Too many of the jokes depend on adult humour about his sexual prowess.

And I’m unconvinced that gags about jail-rape and Fight Club have any place in a children’s film.

Australian premiere: Antonio Banderas (left), Salma Hayek and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg pose with Puss in Sydney

The pace is crippled by inordinately lengthy exposition and repetitive use of flashbacks.

Only the eye-popping action sequences are fun, especially the climb up the beanstalk and a chase along dangerous cliffs.

Puss In Boots is blessedly less dependent on insider showbiz jokes than Shrek 3 and 4 and marks a return to the basics of the series — an irreverent take on fairy stories.

However, the script is nowhere near the quality of the first two Shrek films, seriously lacking in wit and comic punchlines.

You could, if you were given to lame puns, describe it as paw.

ref: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Puss in Boots 2011 - Review by The Telegraph

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